Education Reforms: Yet Another Sham

HOODBHOY`S REBUTTAL

For a rebuttal of Sajida Qureshi`s critique of Hoodbhoy`s piece (see News, December 9, 2000).

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

Sameer

Your post #225 provided a fresh perspective of the situation. It furnished a lot of insight into the military-politician-bourgeois axis and their relative importance in this tug of war between the three to control the affairs of the state. I applaud you effort in writing this post.

Sincerely

Dear sir it was of mush delight to read you comments on the education reforms.Your views are known to mark a negative border on almost all government policies.Your mentioning that GIK and NUST`s teachers cant be compared to those of a `B` class teachers of europe or america,is i think a bit overrated.Good and bad teachers can be find everywhere.Even in MIT the teahers (as my brother says) are extremly ruthless and at times even cold to the students needs.Their may be many good ``researchers`` or ``professors`` but being a ``teacher``/to teach and to convey is entirely another story.Students in universitites are known to study by themselves.

As of saying that Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman is busy cutting ribbons is also a view from the seaside.The educational mess,the diplomacies,the co-operation of others are lot of complexities to be just controlled by a single efficent entity.It is very easy to say that things be done by this way or that way,but the truth can only be learnt by the people engaged sicerely in their efforts.

Importing teahers from abroad(foreginers) has been adopted by GIK(as my brother studies there)but they have a huge communication problem with the students.With Russian teachers expressing their own accent and australian and british in their own.Is this the solution?,I think not.

Their isnt a lack of good teahers in pakistan.Eeven a BE passed (but a high quality one)can teach much better(engineering) and have much better communication with students then a middle aged (phd) professor.

You have not write anything on the IT boom and the ways to progress in it.I would also like to see your views to help Pakistan get out of this ``marshy`` educational system.

If you can,please reply to this to my email adress

arslan@ieee.org

thanking you,

Arslan Rana

In response to SameerJB (Reply # 225)
Dear Sameer:

Thank you for a great response. I tend to agree with you on the NSC. I, however, need to discuss further about the Punjab politics. Could we postpone this for a week or two. I have submitted an article on the issue of Democracy (a theoretically informed piece). After this, I may submit a sequel to this article.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

In response to Bilal Ahmad (#218)

Re: National Security Council (NSC)

Bilal: I did not think much about NSC before. The NSC de facto existed during all civilian governments. Although they are suppose to coordinate on defense matters but obviously a constitutional-NSC as demanded by Musharraf and Company is more for a permanent role of military in running the country than mere defense matters. The previous Prime Ministers, Junejo, BB and NS were all dictated the rules of the game by either COAS or through President before they were allowed to take oath of the office. Of Course, once they starting growing feathers are an indication of the coming to an end of their era. A de jure NSC would eliminate the necessity of military to back a generally weak politician-a politician without a natural constituency of theirs own and overly dependent on military for the backing. With NSC and legalized role in the civilian affairs, the military would be in a position to dictate or interfere at will, whenever they feel that civilians are growing feathers or trying to become independent minded.

The ruling elite in Pakistan has succeeded, through media and teaching from government controlled textbooks in school, over time to convince a large number of people that bureaucracy is bad, feudalism, politicians are terrible and Islam, military are good. Now using this mantra in your often-stated description of power elite as a military-bureaucracy-bourgeoisie alliance would make it a good-bad-ugly alliance respectively. The “good” component has convinced themselves and many others (through media and education) of their importance for any successful existence of Pakistan as a nation-state. It is in the interest of “good” component or military to keep chanting the mantra, I described above. The cornerstone of this mantra is blaming feudalism for all our ills. The feudal make large portion of bourgeoisie and making them look as ugly as possible, increases the importance of “good” component even more in the power elite troika. What is not publicized is that most of the feudal become uglier with additional backing of the “good” component. It is Islam providing the common thread between all three components of the alliance and not the feudalism. Islam in Pakistani politics is, in fact, lot more detrimental to the current quagmire than feudalism. Let me elaborate it, with the example of Punjab.

The provincial governments of Punjab are generally dominated with the politicians from Lahore and as much as half of their cabinet members also come from Lahore. The Kashmiris and AraiN groups who do not have any natural constituency outside Lahore dominate the Lahore politics. Most of the feudal politicians in Punjab with natural constituencies belong to Jats-Rajputs castes. These people are found both in PML and PPP and make up the bulk of parliamentarians. They are generally not given the choicest ministerial positions. All attempts are made to find the weakest Jat-Rajput to fill the ceremonial positions ( Rafiq Tarar, the President) or Ghulam Haider WaiN (sp?) or Sardar Arif Nakai (Chief Ministers of Punjab).

The feudal are necessary for any party to win, yet as part of bourgeoisie they are not trusted with any meaningful responsibilities. The answer is very simple. These people have natural constituencies and do not rely on the backing of “good” force, as is the case for weak leaders from Lahore. Weak leaders are more vulnerable to be selected/ backed by the military and made Prime Ministers and Chief Ministers. It is easy to bring them down by simply pulling the plug from behind. Since these leaders rely on military and the backing of locally powerful/ popular Jats-Rajputs, their overthrow does not lead to any mass uprising. Compare this with the difficulty, PML and PPP faced when they tried to bring down the Jats-Rajputs alliance under Manzoor Watoo during nineties. The Jats_Rajputs are conveniently labeled as the descendants of old Unionists and feudal. They are kept on the fringes of bourgeoisie mainly because of the fear of them dominating even the “good” component in the power alliance because of their numbers and permanent power bases they have.

I do not know much about the inner working of power elite in Sindh. My guess is that a person with extensively documented track record of corruption is picked as the Sindh Chief Minister. He is given a copy of his record soon after he takes oath. This copy of the file containing extensive documentary evidences is sufficient to keep him on the path chosen for him by the alliance.

NSC will also be used to control all such powerful forces in Pakistan, as described above. With NSC, the supreme power will rest more decisively with the ``good`` component. NSC becomes even more important controling tool, once (or if) devolution plan is carried out. Military would not tolerate any independent minded District Administrator coming from the masses with popular support.

P.S. Sorry for the time it took to respond. Please move the discussion to the front page under any less frequently used board.

Jay #221

After reading your smelly and Badbudar writings, Pakistan will still be paradize for me.

I can tolerate more human Jihadis.

In response to mithuna (Reply # 222)
Dear mithuna:

Thanks for the lead. Sajida Qureshi`s rebuttal is written in somewhat adversarial tone. It provides too many details, without answering all of Hoodbhoy`s concerns.

Mithuna, what is your comparative assessment?

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

A rebuttal of this article appears in the opinion section of ``The News, Pakistan`` of 30th November, 2000. It can be seen at http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/nov2000-daily/30-11-2000/oped/o6.htm

Krashid,

I am delighted to know that you are returning home after several years to work for the father land. Things have changed, if you see heavily guarded place, you might mistake it to a bank or some other kafirisque institution, but no, it is a mosque. From Dawn of today,

The SSP urged all the committees of all mosques to deploy two armed guards at every mosque including a guard of a private security agency.

He said the market committee would provide a guard to the mosque of its relevant area while one gunman would be arranged by the mosques` committees.

The official said some private security agencies had offered to provide their security guards free of cost to mosques in Islamabad and some would provide their guards at reduced rates.

// see how bad the situation is, people want to steal the gods, who need AK47 support. For once, may be gods need man. Was it marx who said, pryers come out of the barrel of a guns. No it must be Mullah Aghsar, of the hijack fame.

regards and bon voyage

jay.

SameerJB #216 You make some good points. I think it is ultimately a futile exercise when one tries to sort out who owes what to whom based on whose ancestors did what to whose ancestors. The abusers and the abused are both part of history now and no longer with us. The only fact that remains significant is as follows: if one is born in a free and prosperous society having the rule of law, then one should thank God for one`s good fortune and move on from there.

Bilal Ahmed #

The reproduction theory which you propose for institutions etc seems valid.

Can you elaborate a little bit on this theory.

Why do new institutions replace old.

In response to SameerJB (Reply # 216)
Dear Sameer:

Your statement: ``Why the expectations about economic, social and political reforms end up any different than Education Reforms?``

Comment: The performance of Musharraf regime so far is not very promising. Read the statements given by various pillers of this regime: Each person describes a different thing as the top-priority of the current regime. A nation that fails to feed as well as educate her children is not likely to succeed in the long-run. We don`t need cosmetic reforms to reproduce the status quo. Are there signs that suggest otherwise?

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

P.S. Sameer, what are your views about the National Security Council?

Commercial Ventures and Tour Bus Scholarship in Banaras

http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/sagar/sagar3.2.html#RTFToC37

-Arun Gupta

Since most people agree with Prof. Hoodbhoy that the current Education Reforms are a sham; why then so many here at chowk are confident about all other types of reforms, current junta is talking about? Can`t they treat Education Reforms-Education being the most important item for Pakistan`s future-as a litmus test for things to expect? Why the expectations about economic, social and political reforms end up any different than Education Reforms? Is it solely based upon their dislikes of the previous government?

Re: Aboriginal People of Australia, USA and Canada

Fairdinkum, PM and Tahmad:

I think the White people, in general, justify the treatment of natives in terms of modern state of plurality, democracy, secularism, progress, prosperity, etc in their societies as the result of history of their fore fathers. Undeniably, Australia, NZ, USA or Canada would not have the current level of progress, prosperity, rule of law, if it was not for white settlers but then it is all good seeing from the perspective of Western civilization and now almost universally accepted principles. This is no satisfaction to the natives unless some concrete steps are taken to allevialte the greviances and harm done to the native population. One can not go back and rectify the absurdities of the past but it is possible to compensate for the absurdities, to some extent, with honest and honorable attempts begining with the official apology to the natives.

In the case of India, the natives did not suffer the extent of damage at the hands of Aryans (if you believe invasion) nor at the hands of later Muslim invaders mainly because there were to many native Indians at the time of each invasion. While Whites may have a point in claiming the current status as an excuse for the past, Muslims in India, or Pakistan can not claim anything at present as an excuse for the past absurdities. Islam as religion and Islamic empires as government failed to provide any progress, prosperity or social justice to the native population. Pakistan is in no position to claim better road conditions, health care, education, status of women and minorites or any economic indicators as a justification or excuse for the absurdities of the Islamic period in India. It would be appropriate and wise for Pakistanis to delink themselves completely from the Islamic period in India. This principle must then be followed in teaching history and in history textbooks for children.

Re Canada and its indigenous people, as far as recent newsreports go, a number of church denominations in Canada faced prohibitive law suits after conceding `problems` in Indian schools.

http://www.lcc.gc.ca/en/papers/rapport/sage/sage.html
Needs and Expectations for Redress Of Victims of Abuse at Native Residential Schools

http://www.indigenous.bc.ca/v1/Vol1Ch10s1tos1.1.asp
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples -Final Report
Vol 1, Chapter 10 : Residential schools.

Sadhana

dear fairdinkum,

just so you know I`m following the posts (though have had little time to respond -- what with celebrating the dawn of the white man`s civilizing deeds in another corner of the world and all :-) )

After reading your account of the lost generation (?) of aborigines, I was moved to anger-- the kind that elicits a spontaneous flow of four-lettered adjectives. :)

re. tahmed321`s comment (#210) : ``Do these Asian immigrants also owe an apology to the aborigines for enjoying the fruits created by white Australian?``

hmmm... seemed like a senseless question at first, but if it is argued/established that present-day Australia has been built on the blood/toil of the Aborigines, I can see the relevance. (btw, is there anything approaching Affirmative Action in Oz?)

As far as the the formal apology is concerned, I sometimes feel that, since they talk louder than words, actions are what we chould be more concerned with. Would you say that in the past 40 years the Aus. government has sought earnestly to redress the grievances of the Aborigines population? And what are some of the possible repercussions of a formal apology? (I ask as one quite naive in politics). If there is nothing significant (in terms of national interest) to be lost by an apology, I think the govt. is just acting fu_king racist! I mean, can you honestly imagine them NOT apologizing had the victims been (for argument`s sake) white Americans?

regards,

Pat