Centre, provinces urged to remove hate material from books

Speakers and participants of the education conference jointly organised by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST) on Monday urged the federal and provincial governments to remove discrimination on the basis of religion and sect by using the ongoing education policy review.

Prominent academics, policy experts and civil society representatives, including Dr Riaz Sheikh, Peter Jacob, Justice (redt) Majida Rizvi, Anis Haroon and Rana Asif Habib (Director, Initiator Human Development Foundation), highlighted the challenges at the policy level.

Dr Riaz Sheikh, dean of Social Sciences, SZABIST, said discrimination perpetuated marginalisation, which made mainstreaming and inclusion of minorities as well as implementing equitable rights or all imperative.

He remarked that the education policy and curriculum were the major sources for setting guidelines for the textbooks. Therefore, policy and curriculum should regard the equality of rights for building respect for religious diversity and tolerance, he added.

Peter Jacob, executive director, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), emphasised the right to respectful treatment of all religions for developing a pluralistic, open-minded and tolerant society where members of different faiths and communities were able to live peacefully and flourish. He was of the view that the government should ensure an inclusive and equitable education system at all levels of education, giving due regard to non-discrimination and principles of social justice.

He referred to the recent murder of a teacher at the Sadiq Egerton College by an inflamed student over a trifle matter. He termed forced conversions absolutely shameful, and said biases in education were up while the quality of the endeavour was plummeting.

Anis Haroon, social activist and noted civil society figure, said that the biases in public school books had contributed to a rapidly declining education standard, fueling animosity and acts of intolerance and violence against religious minorities.

Institutionalising diversity and inclusion of minorities would essentially improve the education system, equality of rights and opportunities, and would also help eliminate extremism in Pakistan, she said.

She added that textbooks used at all levels of education contained hate material as regards the minorities and portrayed minority religions very negatively and in a derogatory light.

Education system reforms incorporating religious tolerance were critically necessary for the development of a tolerant Pakistani society, she said.

“Whatever we see today has not been imported from overseas. We have just not bothered to determine as to what values we want to impart to our children.

“Today’s education doesn’t allow questioning or free thinking. Just Article 25 of the constitution (free compulsory education for all citizens) is not enough. What can we expect if we spend a puny one per cent of the GDP on education,” she said.

All flaws in our social set-up, she said, pointed to a terribly flawed education system. She queried as to how we could expect to have a viable education system where freedom of thought and expression were taboo.

Haroon said that last year there had been 3,832 cases of child abuse. She said there were 25 million street children and left it to the participants as to what a shameful record this was whereby we Pakistanis should hang our heads in shame.

She was dead set against the concocted history that formed part of our schools curricula. “Our education system just teaches us sectarianism. We have to keep education secular and keep it away from the orbit of religion.”

Justice (retd) Majida Rizvi emphasised that the government was obliged to ensure the right to quality education, promoting human rights, peace and cultural and religious diversity, under the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973, as well as international human rights treaties, declarations and sustainable development goals (SDGs).

“The male mindset cannot get reconciled to women in key positions.” She lamented the abysmal state of education and recalled her school days when history books did not contain hate material or concoctions. She said that the Constitution of Pakistan clearly laid down that Islamic teachings would not be foisted on non-Muslims.

Rana Asif Habib stated that the government introduced the National Education Policy Framework 2018 that does not pledge to curb religious discrimination and intolerance as directed by the apex court in a judgment issued on June 19, 2014, which is a pathway to tolerance and social harmony.

Providing statistics on schools, he said that there were 38,000 secondary schools in the country of which 10,000 were ghost schools. Twenty-five million children of school-going age were out of school.

At the end of the seminar, a resolution was passed unanimously, calling for the following steps: removal of hate or discriminatory material from all primary, secondary or high school textbooks, as well as from books at colleges and universities; expansion of subject options to the effect that students belonging to minority faiths are able to study a subject conversant with their own religious background; inclusion of measures in federal and provincial education policy framework to remove any distinction or preference on the basis of education; and fixing of quota for minorities in higher education institutions.