Editoral-Militant education

A report by the Brookings Institution has belatedly discovered what academics in Pakistan have been saying for over a decade. It is now being pointed out that the public school system in the country stokes militancy in Pakistan more than anything else.

The inadequacies of the education system are usually cited as risk factors and the report endorses this view. The fact is that the curricula and textbooks, said to have been under revision since 9/11, are responsible for promoting a narrow worldview and a culture of bigotry. Young minds have been exposed to literature that celebrates jihad and glorifies religion by stirring hatred against non-Muslims. Along with the religiosity spewed by many television channels, school books have helped create regressive mindsets that the madressahs approve of. If the religious schools have had a smaller impact it is not because they are more tolerant but because their relatively low enrolment rate limits their reach.

The failure of the public-sector school system — it hardly functions and has not expanded sufficiently — has left many children out in the cold. The private sector that is being encouraged very often cannot provide affordable education to the poor. Even though enrolment is shown as having grown, most children in government schools cannot claim to be benefiting from education of a kind that trains them to become productive and enlightened adults. If anything, rising expectations and the failure to provide the youth opportunities for education and jobs have led to frustration, creating a fertile breeding ground for militancy. The only solution lies in addressing the education sector holistically. The immediate need is to expedite the curricula and textbook reform process, launch a massive teachers’ training programme to raise the standard of pedagogy and install a monitoring mechanism to ensure that schools actually function.

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