The Subtle Subversion
The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan
compiled by
A. H. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim
Summary
Pakistan's public education system has an important role in determining how successful we shall be in achieving the goal of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan. A key requirement is that children must learn to understand and value this goal and cherish the values of truthfulness, honesty, responsibility, equality, justice, and peace that go with it.
The identity and value system of children is strongly shaped by the national curricula and textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII. The responsibility for designing them lies with the Curriculum Wing of the Ministry of Education and the provincial Text Book Boards.
However, a close analysis by a group of independent scholars shows that for over two ecades the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks in these subjects have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan.
The March 2002 revision of curricula undertaken by the Curriculum Wing of the Ministry of Education did not address the problems that existed in earlier curriculum documents. In some cases, these problems are now even worse.
Our analysis found that some of the most significant problems in the current curriculum and textbooks are:
"¢ Inaccuracies of fact and omissions that serve to substantially distort the nature and
significance of actual events in our history.
"¢ Insensitivity to the actually existing religious diversity of the nation
"¢ Incitement to militancy and violence, including encouragement of Jehad and Shahadat
"¢ Perspectives that encourage prejudice, bigotry and discrimination towards fellow
citizens, especially women and religious minorities, and other nations.
"¢ A glorification of war and the use of force
"¢ Omission of concepts, events and material that could encourage critical self-awareness
among students
"¢ Outdated and incoherent pedagogical practices that hinder the development of interest
and insight among students
To give a few examples:
The books on Social Studies systematically misrepresent events that have happened over the past several decades of Pakistan's history, including those which are within living memory of many people.
This history is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects, and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events, and narrowing the perspective that should be open to students. Worse, the material is presented in a way that encourages the student to arginalise and be hostile towards other social groups and people in the region.
The curricula and textbooks are insensitive to the religious diversity of the Pakistani society.
While the teaching of Islamiat is compulsory for Muslim students, on average over a quarter of the material in books to teach Urdu as a language is on one religion. The books on English have lessons with religious content. Islamiat is also taught in Social Studies classes.
Thus, the entire education is heavily loaded with religious teachings, reflecting in this respect a very narrow view held by a minority among Muslims that all the education be essentially that of Islamiat.
There is an undercurrent of exclusivist and divisive tendencies at work in the subject matter recommended for studies in the curriculum documents as well as in textbooks. Pakistani nationalism is repeatedly defined in a manner that is bound to exclude non-Muslim Pakistanis from either being Pakistani nationals or from even being good human beings.
Much of this material would run counter to any efforts at national integration.
The Constitution of Pakistan is cited but misinterpreted in making the reading of the Qur'an compulsory. The Constitution requires the compulsory reading of the Qur'an for Muslim students alone, but in complete disregard for the restriction, it is included in the textbooks of a compulsory subject like Urdu which is to be read by students of all religions. The Class III Urdu textbook has 7 lessons on Nazra Qur'an and its translations. The Urdu and Social Studies curricula even ask for all the students to be taught Islamic religious practices like amaz and Wuzu.
Besides severe pedagogical problems like uneven standards of lessons in books on English and Urdu languages and bad English even in the English language books, glaring contradictions exist in books on Social Studies, making student unable to be a critical learner.
The curriculum as well as the books lay an excessive emphasis on the "Ideology of Pakistan" which is a post-independence construction devised by those political forces which were initially inimical to the creation of Pakistan to sanctify their politics.
Most of the problems cited above have their origin in the curriculum documents and syllabi nd the instructions to textbooks authors issued form the Curriculum Wing of the Ministry of Education. As long as the same institutions continue to be asked to devise curricula, the problems will persist. Repeated interventions from the post-1988 civilian governments failed to overcome the institutional resilience.
The problems get further accentuated at the level of textbook writing where authors produce books that are heavily loaded with doctrinal material and are devoid of much useful instructional content. The provincial textbook boards are to be held squarely responsible for repeatedly failing to produce good and useful textbooks......
We propose that in the curriculum and textbooks for these disciplines, any changes be guided by the following principles:
1. Falsehoods, distortions and omissions concerning our national history needs to be replaced by accounts of events that are supported by rigorous modern scholarship
2. Material encouraging or justifying discrimination against women, religious and ethnic minorities, and other nations, needs to be replaced with positive values of social equality, mutual respect and responsibility, justice and peace.
3. Arbitrary concepts, incoherence, inconsistency and other pedagogical problems need to be replaced by a systematic set of modern ideas about history, society and identity based on well established academic disciplines.
A simple example will be offered here of what might practically be done regarding putting these principles into practice in the national curriculum. Children are presently taught Pakistan Studies as a replacement for the teaching of history and geography as full-fledged disciplines. In the first 25 years of Pakistan, this was not the case. Children at that time were taught the very early history of South Asia, including pre-historic times. The books described in detail the ancient religious mythology of this region, the early great Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms of the Mauriyas and the Guptas, the Muslim conquests and establishment of Muslim sultanates in North India. This long historical perspective of our region is absent in more recent textbooks. Instead, children are now taught that the history of Pakistan starts from the day the first Muslim set foot in India. It would be useful to return to the teaching of history and geography.
The goal should not, however, be a return to a decades old notion of history as the stories of kings and queens, their wars and conquests, and geography as dealing with maps, names and places. These disciplines, like many others, have undergone a profound transformation in other societies. Such changes need to be incorporated if Pakistan's children are to develop the understanding and skills they will need to keep up with their peers around the world in the twenty-first century. In an age of globalisation, Pakistan's children need to learn about their society in the larger context of other societies of the world, and understand how their history and geography and identity is inextricably linked to that of many others......
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of the three compulsory subjects.
1. that Pakistan is for Muslims alone;
2. that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of Qur'an;
3. that Ideology of Pakistan is to be internalized as faith, and hate be created against Hindus and India;
4. and students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat......
Or, the Class 6 book says:
Who am I? I am a Muslim. I am a Pakistani. I love my country and I love my people. "¦ You know that you are a Muslim and your religion is Islam.
It conveys a very harmful message: being a Pakistani is equated with being a Muslim, and that only Muslims are true Pakistani citizens. Patriotism has been equated with Islamic zeal.
The way it has been said clearly alienates religious minorities.
A book lists Acchi baten (good deeds). Among them:
Good people are those who read the Qur'an and teach the Qur'an to others,
implying that those of another faith cannot be good people.
Compulsory Teaching of Islamiat to Non-Muslim Students
The educational material attempts to teach Islamiat to all the students irrespective of their faith through the compulsory subjects of Social/Pakistan Studies, Urdu and English.
Although non-Muslims are not required to take the fourth compulsory subject of Islamiat, there is an extraordinary incentive for them in the form of 25% additional marks for learning and taking examinations in Islamiat.
The curricula of all these subjects require every Pakistani, irrespective of his (her) faith, to love, respect, be proud of and practice Islamic principles, traditions, customs, rituals, etc.,
Both the curricula and textbooks are enlightening in this respect.
