Jamil Nasir Education helps build an inclusive society if the education system happens to be comparatively uniform and provides equality of opportunity to all. It acts as a social and economic leveler by providing opportunities of employment and business (economic power), increasing mobility on the social ladder (social power), and enhancing awareness and the means to take part in decision-making processes (political power). The role of education as a social and economic leveler is, however, seriously questionable in our case. The prevalent education system has exacerbated the already existing social and class divides in the society as rightly pointed out by Najam Sethi in his article titled ‘Educational apartheid must end’. Sethi wrote: “There has always been ‘two Pakistan’. One Pakistan is reserved for the miniscule English-speaking elites who are educated in expensive private schools and colleges and who go on to govern the country and manage its institutions. The other Pakistan is populated by the unwashed, illiterate masses who slave away from these elites from dawn to dusk. This system of educational apartheid continues to eat into the fabric of our nationhood.” The present education system in Pakistan is characterized by deep divides. Such schisms are not only limited to medium of instruction but also go much deeper. For example, students in Urdu-medium public schools come from the low income groups. Teachers in these schools also belong to the same class and income group. They do not take up teaching as a career and a preferred profession out of their will or love for teaching but are rather forced to adopt this after they exhaust all other avenues. They are a demotivated lot who seldom inspire their students. These schools lack basic facilities. Overall environment is dull and not conducive to quality education. The above portrayal of public school system comes from the first-hand experience this writer had during early education. At that time, all students in the school were required to bring empty bags of fertiliser (khaad ki bori) to sit on as the school did not have benches or jute mats. The school had no electricity, no potable water, no canteen and no boundary walls. The students were required to study under the open skies both in winter and summer. Out of total eight teachers, two teachers would visit school by turns, while the remaining six were absent most of the time. There was a tacit understanding among them to protect one another if an officer of the education department ever happened to pay a surprise visit. Learning was mostly by rote. If some students made any mistake (mistake here means anything done contrary to the teachers’ idiosyncrasies), a wooden stick was always readily available to ‘rectify the mistake’. When the harvesting season would set in, the teachers did not hesitate to use students to help in harvesting. The same was the case with the other Urdu-medium public schools of the rural areas. Every student had a similar story to tell. Such schools still abound especially in the far-flung rural areas. No substantial change seems to have taken place in the last two decades with the result that neglect continues to characterise the working of Urdu-medium schools operating in the public sector. Drop-out ratios are high. Those who manage to complete school education successfully fail to get employment based on the skills acquired by them in such schools. The students who succeed in getting admission in medical or engineering colleges or get into the civil services constitute a very small fraction of total enrolment in such schools compared to English medium elite schools. Madressahs (religious seminaries) are the second category of schools which cater to the needs of the poorest of the poor. The void created due to state neglect has been filled in by religious seminaries. Madressahs not only provide free education to their students but also give free food, boarding and lodging. They also provide some type of employment at the end of the day in the mosques. The last three decades have seen a mushroom growth of madressahs in the country. A majority of analysts attributes their growth to misplaced Islamisation move initiated in Pakistan in the 1980s owing to the Afghan jihad. Some attribute the growth of such seminaries to the rise in poverty in Pakistan. But these are not the only factors. The growth of madressahs is rooted in historical, political and socio-economic variables. The British largely placed emphasis on liberal education to create a class of administrators to run the country. The Muslims of the Subcontinent reacted to liberal education by sticking to the traditional Islamic learning and that too in its very conservative form. A conflict that ensued during the colonial rule has persisted to date. Now these madressahs are considered the breeding ground for jihadi culture in Pakistan. They are not uniform in their outlook on life and their worldview differs depending upon the sect they belong to. They are aligned along their particular sect-lines and contents of syllabi taught in these seminaries reflect their sectarian leanings. So much so that some of them go to the extent of branding the adherents of other sects as kafirs (non-believers). The point I am making is that the madressahs are not only divorced from the mainstream education, rather the outlook and worldview imparted by one brand of madressah conflicts with the outlook and worldview of the other brand. Further, the methodology of teaching is such that the adherents of one particular brand do not consider the interpretation of other sect reconcilable and agreeable. This has deepened the fissures in society and hindered the evolution of an inclusive society. The unending wave of target killing of members of the Shia community in Quetta and Karachi is linked to sectarian intolerance, prejudices and bigoted outlook imparted by such madressahs. The third broad category of schools in Pakistan is of the privately-run elite schools. They cater to the needs of the upper and upper-middle classes. They differ from the other two streams of education in curriculum, medium of instruction, teaching methodology, and worldview of their students. Thus the point is that education in Pakistan is stratified according to the socio-economic status of people. Different streams of education being followed in Pakistan lead to different classes, mindsets and outlooks, which may be at loggerheads with one another. They also provide different earning opportunities with different income levels. Thus, according to Dr Tariq Redman’s study titled ‘Denizens of alien worlds: A study of education, Inequality and polarization in Pakistan’, education system in Pakistan has helped create haves and have-nots through sustained focus on elite education to the detriment of the common man. Why did the state patronize elite education and neglect the poor and the downtrodden? Education has historically received little priority both in terms of resource allocation and policy focus as power remained concentrated in the elite’s hands due to the persistence of extractive institutions. The political system, democratic or otherwise, was never broad-based in character as well as orientation. Since the decision-making power was dominated by the rich elite, the good of the poor never figured in their political priorities. David de la Croix and Mathias Deopke, in their paper titled ‘To segregate or to integrate: Education, Politics and Democracy’, have argued that if the political arrangements are not broad-based, politicians are not responsive to the needs of the families using public schools. It implies that neglect of public education for the poor will continue unless political arrangements are broad-based and reflect the preferences of the people.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 18:46:37 +0000
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