| May 29, 2002 | Wednesday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 16,1423 |
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Bane of ‘guide books’
Law to the rescue
An important point in the president’s speech is his reference to the irregularities in the conduct of the referendum. While he has claimed that women, the youth and the business community supported him, he has admitted that some people in their “carelessness” had committed irregularities. If such were the case, he said, he was sorry and extended an apology to the nation on that score. The truth is that with the possible exception of two general elections — those in 1970 and 1993 — most electoral exercises in Pakistan have been tainted by unfair practices. Often, the state machinery worked openly to ensure the victory of the government in power, or to back one of the sides when a caretaker but actually a partisan government was in power — as in 1988 and 1990. While the losing side invariably protested against the rigging and often refused to accept the outcome, the winning side claimed the election to be fair and its victory genuine. Departing from the set pattern, President Musharraf has acknowledged partial rigging and apologized. By doing so, he has raised, not lowered, himself in the eyes of the nation.
Another part of the president’s speech concerns the domestic political scene and relates to his effort to take the politicians into confidence with regard to the situation on the border. Last time, the leaders of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and those belonging to some religious parties had declined the president’s invitation to meet. As the president has reminded the nation, the tension along the borders now is at its peak and the danger of war has not abated. This calls for national unity. One hopes all parties and leaders will attend the meeting scheduled for later this week. True, many political parties have serious reservations about the present government, and a lot of bitterness and misgivings have been created by the April 30 referendum.
However, this is no time to vitiate the domestic political scene while the enemy stands at the border ready to strike. The government, too, must understand the reason why some political parties boycotted the last meeting. Wielding power for a limited period is one thing; denigrating and lampooning the politicians every now and then quite another. All along these years, some of the president’s military colleagues have never tired of demonizing the politicians. No wonder, the politicians should feel irked, even if some of the criticism is well deserved. Let everybody at this critical hour realize that the nation can ill-afford internal squabbling and acrimony while the enemy is at the gate. Let all sides, the government as well as the politicians, rise above petty considerations and present a united front at this, one of Pakistan’s darkest hours.
A GROUP of students and teachers at the Peshawar University has done well to voice concern over rampant proliferation of exam guide books and other such substandard material which have virtually replaced the prescribed books at the university level. The situation elsewhere in the country is not very different either. Exam guide books are nothing short of handy but spurious devices that university students are increasingly relying on to get through the exams, sometimes with flying colours. They defeat the very purpose of education and only serve as a rogue student’s cheating kit. But students alone cannot be blamed for resorting to such short cuts to success in exams. Teachers who write such guide books and make a quick buck at the cost of students are equally to blame.
The concern voiced by the said group should be taken seriously by the government, as it points to a real problem afflicting the higher education system. There is a strong case for revamping the entire system and introducing modern teaching methods employed elsewhere in the world and at some private institutions of higher learning in Pakistan. But, this is easier said than done for obvious reasons involving sizable human and financial resources, which may not be readily forthcoming. Meanwhile, what the government can and should do is to prohibit the publication and use of guide books as a substitute for the prescribed method of learning. Textbooks must be of proper standards and university teachers should be required to deliver lectures and students encouraged to take their own notes. The process of changes and improvements that this reorientation involves is arduous and time-consuming, but it must be carried out if the qualitative decline in the output of the country’s higher education is to be arrested.
THE judgment of a family court in Peshawar should be commended for annulling the marriages of two under-age girls, both of whom had been forced into prostitution by their in-laws. The girls, both sisters, were married off by their mother, a domestic worker, to two young boys. After the marriage, they were forced by their in-laws to act as call-girls to earn money. During this time, they were not allowed to meet their mother and it was only when one of the sisters managed to get hold of a mobile phone to contact the mother did the matter come to the notice of the authorities. Both sisters were lucky that their plight attracted official attention and their case came before a judge who took the right decision of allowing the mother’s plea for dissolution of their marriages.
Such cases are unfortunately the proverbial tip of the iceberg. While it is good that the marriages of these two young girls have been annulled, the people who forced them into prostitution should also be proceeded against. The fact that Pakistan is signatory to the Convention for the Rights of the Child has not made much of a difference to the practice of child marriage and other odious forms of abuse and exploitation of the child. Appropriate legislation, together with social action and poverty alleviation programmes, must form the basic plank of a drive to gradually stamp out the evil of child abuse in our society.