Education: An Abysmal Situation

Passionate article,

I do agree our education system sucks!!!

I do know it is damn difficult to change it as the politicians and Mullahs will not let go of their prized possessions and let them get educated. Heaven forbid!! The priviledged class screams, now the Kami Kameen will get educated and strive for equality with our children!!!!

Education broadens your mind and makes you question but ignorance makes you follow others blindly.

All they want is blind masses devoid of any rational thought acting out like zombies to play in the hands of political and religious parties.

What is new ?

To some degree USA has a two tiered system for education. Folks who can afford homes in good school districts, can afford to coach their kids for SAT beat those who cannot.

Yaar, I can understand your angst at the pathetic situation of education in Pakistan (not that it is any better in India), but why are you bent upon shooting yourself in the foot by advocating the need to teach Arabic in schools? What good is going to come out of it except that young Pakis will start to understand the Quran better? Is it going to help further their careers? Most English-medium students in India and Pakistan cannot speak English fluently, so how are we going to teach them to speak European languages?

Yahya yaar:
Why don`t you lower your expectations here a bit? Where do you get the money, people, teachers, will to serve the society, school buildings, to include comp.science, science, modern European language, English, Urdu and Sindhi etc. You must be a an Khaki clad officer or some burocrat! to order and gets things done. If Pak Generals spend less money on military and its toys and divert more to the education , Pakistanis may get some thing better for their children.

Tell me why spend time and money to study ` Arabic`` ? It is stupid don`t you think?

I dont think that this aparthied system of education and social hierarchy in Pakistan can be abolished by raising the awareness alone - it will need an armed resistance and civil war, which is an inevitability.

about 2-tiered systems..
sometime back shivsena, the rightwing party in bombay, which is generally anti-western values made english compulsory in primary schools. this was contradictory to their attitude of banning valentines day etc. their argument was that the lower-classes fall behind due to lack of phur-phur english.

Its time-honored reality that after bread, clothing and shelter, education is the most basic necessity.
It is education that lifts people out of the state of chronic poverty in which they are constantly struggling to fulfill basic needs such as these. The truth is that all people have a right to have these basic needs fulfilled, and they also have a right to education.
According to UNESCO More than 836 million adults in the developing world are illiterate. Around the world, one of every eight children is not enrolled in primary school, and more than one third of adolescents are not in high school. It is no coincidence that the vast majority of these unschooled youngsters and illiterate adults can be found in the poorest countries on earth. The direct link between poverty and lack of educational opportunities has been demonstrated many times over. Poverty has many roots, but the tap root is ignorance.
While everyone has a contribution to make in furthering our educational progress, basic education is a fundamental right, and it is the responsibility of governments to provide it. The huge gaps in opportunity that we witness in our world are just one form of injustice, and states are bound by duty and by law to strive for justice. Quite simply, we are not investing enough in education. We are condemning our children to be poor laborers, just as their grandparents were. Instead of preparing them for the twenty-first century, we are sending them back to the nineteenth century. We can do much better than this.
Many leaders in Islamabad will tell you that the cost of providing decent educational opportunities is prohibitive. Saddled with debt, lacking infrastructure, and short of trained personnel, we simply cannot afford to provide basic schooling for all children. However, this is not a problem of lack of resources, but rather a problem of resource allocation. The United Nations estimates that it would only take an additional six billion dollars per year to make basic educational opportunities available to the entire population of the developing world. To put that figure into perspective, consider that Americans spend 8 billion dollars per year on cosmetics, and Europeans spend 11 billion dollars annually on ice cream. Or consider the fact the world spends 780 billion dollars per year on weapons and soldiers. Obviously, the resources necessary to provide educational services exist; it is just a matter of changing our priorities and redirecting them so that they benefit the needy children of the world.
Education is not only essential to the creation of democracies, it is essential to development, and in particular to what we today call ``sustainable development.`` Sustainable development implies a balance between meeting immediate needs and looking to the future with a long-term vision. Everyone knows by now that the hierarchy of human needs dictates that someone who is hungry and has a family to feed is not going to think of sending children to school. To reverse this phenomenon, concerted efforts to meet the basic needs of poor families, as well as strong programs of education that are capable of instilling a long-term vision and teaching the responsible use of resources, will be indispensable.

In response to the comment about studying Arabic being a stupid activity, I really have to disagree. Because we are a one-track society (as in speak English to succeed), we neglect Arabic. I`m not in any way saing that we should place less importance on English. Muslims wishing for the older days are always crying about how we should speak only Arabic and forget about English, so that our majesty and `hour` may come again, but that, needless to say, is naiive. English is a necessity; I think the concept of Urdu medium schools is itself naiive, but a reality becuase as Noori has brought to our attention very well, English serves to set barriers within our society.

Coming back to the topic of Arabic, I have come to this realization rather ashamedly, becuase in the end, as a Muslim (which the majority of Pakistanis are) it is difficult to appreciate/ grasp/ read prophetically chapters of the Qur`an without complete command over the original language of revelation.

We have fantastic translations and interpretations from scholars; plenty are in print. What strikes me though, is that looking past the `benchmark` translation Abdullah Yusuf Ali produced, many of the translations have been composed by converts of Western origins. These people realized that in order to really understand the sacred guidance the Qur`an provides, they had to learn Arabic, which they did.

I may sound absurd I know, but I think a lot of the misunderstandings, lack of tolerance etc that Muslims today face, are because they are unable to transliterate material from the Qur`an on their own. Each translation has its own viewpoint, and of course there are no hundred-percent analogous languages, therefore `lossy` translation is inevitable going from one medium (i.e. language) to another.

It is however, a terrible thing to force it, because as an instructor, you may know its importance, but students in elementary schools seldom take to foreign languages brilliantly. I think what could be instated is a steady progression of levels of study, not jsut for Arabic but for a language of choice; for we must minimize our inherent judgement of others to a minimum (e.g. ``Why are you studying French? Don`t you know Arabic is the language of the Qur`an?`` types of statements.)

So, I`m all about studying different languages at free will, but I think we all know in the depths of our minds that without fully grasping Arabic fundamentals, we`ll never get the most of our divine guidance.

All,
Here is the problem with a muslim :

1. When the world is going high tech and fast forward mode, they want time and effort to be spent on learning Arabic, the language of the masters who imposed their culture in the name of god. Talk about Arabization of the mind.

2. Instead of attacking the fundamental problem, which is, there is NO DEMOCRATIC institutions on which people can depend upon they talk endlessly on myriad half-baked theories about solution to all their ills.

3. When a govt is run by a military which spends everything on an ARMY which always ends up getting beaten anyways, then nothing changes.

4. When the bedrock of a country is based on their INABILITY TO LIVE with people with different philosophies then it is a vicious cycle. You want to prove you are right, when you are obviously wrong. And you avoid to attack the basic issue on why there is hatred in PAK? Coz it was a country created exclusively on hatred for different philosophies though other than religion everything else is common.

Think, analyze but unless the basic wrong foundation is corrected nothing changes. It will be endless cycles.

#8 by sapuri
...........So, I`m all about studying different languages at free will, but I think we all know in the depths of our minds that without fully grasping Arabic fundamentals, we`ll never get the most of our divine guidance........

Ya Allah! Why in the world Allah did not think of other languages other than Arabic for his divine message? After all there were great classical languages 1400 yeaqrs ago ? Why didn`t select from antiquities. like Chinese, Sanskrit, Greek, Latin etc. Why select only Arabic and keep others in perpetual darkness making it so difficukt to achieve salvation?

#8 by sapuri
...........So, I`m all about studying different languages at free will, but I think we all know in the depths of our minds that without fully grasping Arabic fundamentals, we`ll never get the most of our divine guidance........

Ya Allah! Why in the world Allah did not think of other languages other than Arabic for his divine message? After all there were great classical languages 1400 yeaqrs ago ? Why didn`t select from antiquities. like Chinese, Sanskrit, Greek, Latin etc. Why select only Arabic and keep others in perpetual darkness making it so difficukt to achieve salvation?

Re: # 11

....adding to it, especially when the majority of human population was in the eastern land, china and india.

I would learn English as a foreign language. Mandarin, Arabic, Hindi, Spanish, French ...... in more or less that order

I would agree to most people comments here but i have a few suggestions of my own stemming from the article and from the readers` opinions as well

First of all for political development essentially what needs to happen is that there has to be a politicization of the society not of a minority of privileged people. Look towards the 60`s when Pakistan became the first country ever in history to bring down a dictator by people`s power. Look today, despite the benefits of ``trickle down`` growth not reaching the masses but rather inflation drives hitting the common man the most and despite the overarching role of army in the political arena and in the stifling of so called democratic institutions in the ``supreme interest of the nation`` what we have is a lifeless, numb and apolitical audience. What has made us like that.. its because we as students have been told.. no politics its ur duty to study.. but its also our duty to tell the state admin that man u are doing something wrong here and we want change. A comparative across many nations who have come far ahead in terms of political development (look at Europe or the US) have active student wings and political socialization begins from education where there are student democrats and republican. So depoliticization of education is not the solution.

Secondly, in terms of imparting education there are always question of what sort of education are we talking about. Sadly enough, and as the author points out that there has been an orientation towards the west to look for solutions to the miseries created at home (the westernized people are going to effectively ruin the country.. so has decolonization really occured or is there a colonization of the mind) which has led to differential access to education and lack of education for most leading to more inequality and poverty. Thus we need an endogenous and indigenous model to education, and arabic is one way of doing it (though i am not suggesting it be the only way) but for the purpose of the so-called Muslims this country has been created for and also the fact that new problems relating to role of religion, state and society need to be discussed and people need to be educated along those lines and also for the possibility of interpretations and solutions to the novel problems facing pakistan today. And this can be done... as said earlier it can be done and its definitely not a problem of resources but of resource allocation.

Thirdly, whenever we talk about education sadly again in our mind we create biases about who needs it urgently and who can live without it. The matter of adult education has hardly been broached in the article and once again education does not mean building of new formal school structures (another possibility) but of evening classes lead by the very students of the school to educate the adults on what they have read which will not only help the students in their retention of material but will also benefit society at large and the emphasis at large should not be about teaching the word (L is for land) but rather the world (L is for land reform which you wont ever get :() and in this regard i am talking about Paulo Freire`s method of education (From Pedagogy of the Opressed)

Lastly, but more importantly i feel that the process of education has to be complimented by infrastructure development and job creation. Its not that people don`t have proper education but there aren`t enough jobs created within the system and thus most people are shut off from the oppurtunity of employment only to be employed in the more radicalized version of Islam and thus the ``inevitable`` sectarianism strikes home. Most of these elements at large has more to do with bad socio-economic conditions rather than extremism really. Who would say no to weapons and cash when it is providing you with that sort of empowerment that education is supposed to provide you to become a functioning member of society.

In conclusion i would say that most of the problems that are occuring have been mostly systemic (due to the military dictatorship), lack of political development (apoliticisation of institutions and of society at large) and lack of social development (the abysmal amount of money spent on health education and other social indicators)

We must fix our judiciary. As in, we really need to have a potent judiciary, which should be the most supreme institution in Pakistan. That being stated, I believe that we need more progressive legislation regarding industrialization.

Let the industrialists create industry, which shall create employment. Employment will result in more wealth trickling down to the masses, which shall raise the bar at the end of the day.

Babu will have to reform himself tho :)

In response to comments I received

Hi ladies and gentlemen

I appreciate your comments. At the moment I can only say that in advising Arabic to include in the curriculum I intend to suggest a way to uproot Mullah’s claims of ownership on Islam. When a common man will be able to read the religious scriptures with understanding he will no longer need the Mullah to explain the religion for him, which the Mullah does happily, but according to his own motives. This will help in eradication of extremism as the person truly understanding the spirit can never go wrong, as Islam is the religion of peace.

As per the cost, if a nation can provide million-dollar cars to the so-called nation’s representatives in the assembly, billions of dollars to the white elephants of defence, it can surely provide some money to provide quality teachers and teaching facilities.

As far as dreaming and wishing is concern, I am one of those people who believe in well wishing and seeing the glass half-full. There is no tax on it (up to now) and some day I believe, my dreams will come true.

Regarding the importance of Arabic for Muslims, I will Insahallah come up with a separate derailed article on it. (Just let me get rid of these never ending final year MBBS exams)

Sapoori and yahyanoori are right. Since all of one`s life`s decisions must be made in accordance with an Arabic book, it is not wise to let others translate the book for you. Mastering Arabic must be made compulsory, and the first order of business.

Whats with this arabic issue? I just dont get it why so many people here have objections only on learning arabic ? If a community wants to study a particular language for what so ever reasons, why dont the rest just learn to respect that.
You shoudnt have problems regarding opinions of people from other faiths, if your a true secular. Are you?

noori you said:
[1. All political parties should be forced to say goodbye to their student wings and all political activities inside the educational institutions should be EFFECTIVELY banned. The students should be told that serious actions whould be taken against them if they indulge in political activities. ]
To tell you something really good, this particular issue, which had been plaguing youth specially in metropolitan cities, has been resolved to some extent, for the last six to seven years. At least I can say for my university, which is one of the major unis in Pakistan. In the past , there had been a very strong hold of Jamiat here too, like many other universities in the rest of the country. Students dint had regular classes or exams, so instead of completing a regular course in 4 years, it took students five, even seven years at times, to gradute college. But things have literally turned the other way round, since the millitary govt. At present, not only the political activities of students have been effectively banned, with panelties, but also our sessions are being regulated very efficiently, and there are even some which are gonna complete before time.

And the rest of your suggestions, well your quite right. But the thing is they never ask ``us`` the students , the youth, when formulating thier never-revised education policies. After all who knows best , than the ones effected by their cramped systems. thats a dilema. But we shouldnt stop raising our voices.

nqsh #19

`` Whats with this arabic issue? I just dont get it why so many people here have objections only on learning arabic ? If a community wants to study a particular language for what so ever reasons, why dont the rest just learn to respect that.
You shoudnt have problems regarding opinions of people from other faiths, if your a true secular. Are you? ``

There is no problem in learning Arabic if you want to improve your chances of a job in the Middle East or if you want to became a learned Islamic scholar. It is bad public policy to mandate Arabic as a compulsory language over Urdu or English.

bbabu

A vast majority of debate in Islamic communities can be summarized as follows -

X is Islamic.
X is not Islamic.

The Koran says Y.
The koran does not say Y.


Under such circumstances, it is imperative that people study the Koran in its original language. A deep mastery of Arabic is required; that too, before a person reaches 18 years of age. That can happen only if Arabic instruction is begun in earnest in elementary school and is strictly enforced for the next 13 years of a person`s education.

You are quite right.
But students also love to join political parties because they also get a number of benefits like getting extra marks(unofficially), escaping from failures, indulging in a number of activites which are prohibited for neutral students. Above all these students have something which everyone longs for, POWER. They can do anything to anyone and no one asks, because they are political workers.
So to uproot politics, we will have to deprive them of these previlages.
Nobody will join a party, if he is not getting ``special facilities.``

Anybody in favor of Arabic is an idiot and should be shot.

Re: # 23
This is an uncivilized way to ignore othes point of view.
What else can i say!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I want to respond to your idea of ``yellow schools`` I am married to one of your Pakistani Yellow school graduates. She is working in the States as a highly qualified physician. Her brother also a graduate of a yellow school has an MBA. Now as far as ``luck`` is concerned I don`t buy it. Over and over again I have met very qualified professionals from Pakistan who attended NOT the private schools but the ``yellow schools`` and now live and work in The States. As a matter of fact if I were to conduct an informal survey the spoiled brats of private schools can`t make it in the competitive environment abroad.

When it comes to education, hard work and dedication is way more important then money or luck or the right schools.