Pakistan became independent sixty six yearsago yet we are nowhere near achieving universal education. The civil society,charitable institutions, foundations and many individuals are doing verynoteworthy and valuable work. This has however not made any significantprogress in achieving universal education. Recently Imran Khan has beenpropagating the idea of single syllabus for the whole country. This certainlyis a step in the right direction. The basic problem however is the existence oftwo different systems – the English and the Urdu medium schools and then thereare English medium schools affiliated to British system. In effect we havethree different types of schools in addition to the madrassas.
The existence of the privately owned English medium and the British Systemschools has created an oligarchy in the country because only the rich canafford to send their children to these schools. One would guess that there areno more than few hundred thousand families whose children go to these expensiveschools and ultimately enter government services, the armed forces, thesuperior services, banks and private sector companies. As a result thesefamilies dominate all aspects of power and governance in the country. One majordrawback of the present system and policy is that the talent from only thesefew hundred thousand families is utilized. In other words it will not be untrueto say that the talent from over 99 percent of the population is untapped andthe country is deprived of what these children of high IQ would given a levelplaying field achieve.
Before our independence in the British India there were only a few Englishmedium private schools in what is present Pakistan. One could in fact countthem on fingers of one hand for boys there was Burn’s Hall in Abbottabad,Grammar School, St. Patrick and St. Paul in Karachi, St. Anthony and AitchisonCollege in Lahore. For girls also there were only a few such schools likeSacred Heart in Lahore, Convents in Karachi and Murree. Almost everyone went togovernment schools which were Urdu medium. I recall attending Government HighSchool Jacob Lines where Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar’s sons were also studying.Dr. Tariq Nishtar who lives in Peshawar would confirm this.
After independence the armed forces established a number of extremely well-runschools in all the provinces however, these were also English medium. Onedistinction of these schools is that apart from excellent academic standardthey inculcated high moral values and national pride in their students. Themain reason for the present divide in our education system is because 66 yearshave gone by and no one in the civil bureaucracy, in the Armed Forces or thepoliticians has bothered to pay any attention to the problem. In my opinion thereason behind the proliferation of these private English medium schools and thedivide in education is because the official language of the country is stillEnglish. The Army, the Air Force, Navy, all the departments of the federalgovernment, all the provincial governments and the Superior Courts employEnglish for all their work. As a result there is an enormous demand for youngmen and women to be fluent in English.
There are about 20,000 madaris in the country they are protected by the 1973Constitution which permits their establishment. Most of them are members of theWif’aq-ul-Madaris. It may be noted that the madaris are established and runentirely by private donations. The syllabus of the madaris is based upon theDars-e-Nizami which is over 265 years old because its author Mullah NizanuddinSehalvi died in 1748 at Firangi Mahal, Lucknow in undivided India. It is abouttime that the madaris take cognizance of this and update their syllabusparticularly with respect to non-religious subjects like Balaghah (Rhetoric),Mantiq (Logic), Riyadiyat (Arithmetic and geometry). They need to examine allthe non-religious courses and update them in accordance with the latestteaching methods and scientific knowledge. For example for arithmetic, theKumon system must be introduced. The government may consider sending arepresentative team of ulema of all schools of thought to study the curriculaof some of well- known institutions like Al-Azhar, the Islamic University,Madinah, International Islamic University, Malaysia, Qom University, Iran andexamine the school curricula in Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE and Malaysia.
It is very important that the federal government sets up a commissionconsisting of members of the parliament, the educationists and the ulema todetermine the education policy for the country. We need to decide and put it inblack and white as to what we want to achieve from our school education. Do wewant to inculcate atheism, teach materialistic values, and promote lust formoney and greed? Is it our object to impart national pride, Islamic moralvalues and produce spiritually well anchored young men and women? These are thematters which need to be decided once for all because without this theeducation policy will remain directionless.
Once the direction of the education policy has been decided in order to rapidlyachieve universal education and remove this unethical divide in education it isessential to make the National language the official language of the country.Punjab even before independence was the largest publisher of Urdu in BritishIndia. In KPK and Sindh Urdu is the language of commerce and localcorrespondence. In 1973 the government of Baluchistan of Chief Minister SardarAtaullah Mengal adopted Urdu as the official language. This excellent policy wasreversed by Bhutto after he dismissed the elected Baluchistan government.Furthermore the nationalizing of the schools and colleges by Bhutto was alsoone of his major blunders. Zia-ul-Haq’s policy of permitting privately ownedschools without any control of their education policy has been a disasterbecause it has resulted in the total commercialization of school education.These schools do not inculcate any moral values or national pride in fact theseschools do not educate but impart rote literacy. The lack of national pride andabsence of high moral values in the most of the present generation can largelybe attributed to these schools.
Initially it would be best for the armed forces to adopt Urdu this would notraise objections from any quarter. Thereafter the Federal Government and theprovinces should follow. The lower judiciary already uses Urdu. The SuperiorJudiciary would be the last institution to change over to Urdu becauseconsiderable work would be required for them to adopt Urdu.
Urdu was the official language of the government of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Onecan easily obtain all the documents pertaining to the system obtaining there toadopt with changes where necessary.
Once Urdu has been made the official language it will be possible to adopt asingle uniform education system, remove the present immoral divide in educationand progress to achieve universal education would be possible.
