Education: The Most Important Battle of All

Rab Nawaz

There are only a hand­ful of issues in Pak­istan around which most socio-polit­i­cal stake­hold­ers can form a con­sen­sus, and edu­ca­tion is often referred to as one such issue; polit­i­cal elites, bureau­crats, civ­il soci­ety and ordi­nary folk alike tend to agree that edu­ca­tion is the van­guard of a new Pak­istan. And as such, the gov­ern­ments of Pun­jab and Khy­ber Pakhtoonkhwa (KPK) are right­ly pay­ing spe­cial atten­tion to end what is being called an edu­ca­tion emer­gency in our coun­try. In recent days we have seen a con­cert­ed effort to increase enrol­ment, decrease dropout rates and build key infra­struc­ture. Mea­sures are also being tak­en to improve teach­ing qual­i­ty through train­ing and the estab­lish­ment of schol­ar­ship funds. But along­side these com­mend­able steps is anoth­er wor­ry­ing trend, where the influ­ence of extrem­ism with­in our edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions is grow­ing with lit­tle resis­tance from the con­cerned author­i­ties.

The seem­ing­ly dis­parate but inter­con­nect­ed events that have gained pub­lic atten­tion in the past few weeks all point to the state of edu­ca­tion in Pak­istan. An al-Qai­da oper­a­tive has been arrest­ed from the Pun­jab Uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus; admin­is­tra­tions at the Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (NUST) and oth­er insti­tu­tions are enforc­ing more con­ser­v­a­tive dress codes on stu­dents; the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment has ini­ti­at­ed legal action against a pri­vate school in Lahore for teach­ing the sub­ject of Com­par­a­tive Reli­gions to its young stu­dents; the Khy­ber Pakhtoonkhwa (KPK) gov­ern­ment has decid­ed to rein­cor­po­rate ‘jiha­di’ teach­ings in the school cur­ricu­lum. The direc­tion or the cumu­la­tive out­come of these events is not hard to dis­cern.
There is how­ev­er a his­tor­i­cal con­text here, with the domains of edu­ca­tion and mass media hav­ing been in the firm con­trol of right-wing ele­ments ever since the Zia days. Over decades this has cul­ti­vat­ed a mind­set pre­dis­posed to ide­o­log­i­cal indoc­tri­na­tion, reli­gious intol­er­ance and xeno­pho­bia. And today we seem to have reached a point where our edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions are help­ing fos­ter an envi­ron­ment where the likes of the Tal­iban and their ilk can find safe haven.

The above men­tioned inci­dents are but a con­tin­u­a­tion of the government’s des­per­ate attempts to avoid the unavoid­able: a chal­lenge to mil­i­tan­cy on all fronts. The Pun­jab and KPK Chief Min­is­ters have already demon­strat­ed their unwill­ing­ness to act against the Tal­iban, although the fresh wave of attacks the coun­try has recent­ly been sub­ject­ed to should make our pol­i­cy-mak­ers reassess their ear­li­er calls for nego­ti­a­tions with the mil­i­tants.

Depend­ing on its capa­bil­i­ty or will, our state may have vary­ing pol­i­cy per­spec­tives, but it remains imper­a­tive that we as a soci­ety learn from our expe­ri­ence with mil­i­tan­cy and the heavy price we have had to pay for it. What­ev­er hap­pens in the future with peace deals and armed oper­a­tions, it is all too clear that the real effort against the mil­i­tants has to be waged with equal vigour on oth­er fronts, edu­ca­tion being the fore­most of them. If this bat­tle of hearts and minds is to be won, our gov­ern­ment must nour­ish our young minds with inde­pen­dent thought, crit­i­cal fac­ul­ty and civic val­ues at par with the mod­ern world.

(Edi­to­r­i­al Issue 12)