The ninth class students are still fretting. A circular defining the (revised) fee payment schedule for the SSC composite exams 2008 has been issued by the Board of Secondary School Education Karachi (BSEK), but conflicting statements in the Press regarding its actual implementation policy are still being broadcast by officials. Neither has any official notification been sent by the board to the schools regarding the composite exams for the present class nine students.

Sindh Minister for Education Hamida Khurho has stated that the policy decision of composite exams is final but the Chief Minister Sindh is insisting that the decision is in no way the last word and further discussions are taking place to ‘solve’ the issue. At the same time the Governor has stated that whatever decision is to be taken will be taken keeping the students’ welfare in mind. Since mass confusion is all that the officials have managed to come up with, students’ welfare is already compromised as there is only a month and a half left for the matriculation exams.

In the absence of an official notification, the latent fear amongst class nine students is that the trauma experienced by last year’s students will be replayed for them this year. The previous class nine students were told at the eleventh hour that they will be taking their class nine exams and were given a month to prepare. Since the decision was taken in the summer holidays, students and relevant teachers were contacted at home and called in for preparatory studies during vacations. Holding the practical exams out of schedule also created numerous problems for schools and subsequently these continued till much after the class nine students had entered class ten. Those students are still facing the repercussions of the delayed decision. Adding the total number of students in classes nine and ten, the aggregate number is approximately 600,000 students and their families being subjected to unnecessary trauma.

While all the students and teachers questioned seem to be in a state of anguish regarding the present indeterminate state, a private school headmistress asserts that the only effect composite exams will have, is poorer results and a low passing percentage. She also adds however, that the integrity of the results announced by the BSEK is anyway suspect and those students who don’t pass or don’t get good marks can get their marks altered anyway if they have even a remote connection with any board official. So as far as the merit of the policy decision of composite exams goes – there is none. The only reason given by the federal education minister is that it was the system in which he had given the matric exams and so it should be implemented. The frivolous justification speaks eloquently for all decisions made by the government!

Though the Sindh education minister is standing firm on the composite exams decision, the last minute change is still very much a possibility by the direct order of the Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad. By virtue of his position, the governor is the controlling authority of all examination conducting boards within Sindh which includes the secondary and higher secondary level exams i.e., classes nine, ten, eleven and twelve. Another vital decision regarding the new system of exams for class nine and class eleven (first year of intermediary school) is also awaiting a notification. The new system is supposed to come into effect from this year BUT again no clear notification/advisory has been sent to the schools and colleges and as such the class eleven (first year inter) who will be taking their exams in a few months time as well do not know whether they will be taking the exam in the newly defined system of testing or following the old one.

To say that our educational standard is appalling is stating the obvious. But what is mind boggling is that whenever a supposed step is taken to ‘improve’ it, the government officials and policy makers only succeed in making a mess of it. They have unlimited time to bicker and give out whimsical/ad-hoc statements but priority remains focussed on personal or political demands. Statements regarding educational reforms and power to the grassroots level have been issued ad infinitum. But in the same breath, if students’ concerns are being ignored and the province is succumbing to the Centre, how will one gauge the veracity of any policy or decision taken?

There was nothing new in what I heard about Pakistan, Kashmir and Afghanistan from three different sources on successive days last week. But then the subjects were too topical not to get excited about and those who spoke were too important to ignore.Take, for instance, the subject of Pakistan and the interaction on the subject last Wednesday between the members of Pakistan Society, a student body at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and Dr Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s High Commissioner here.

During the question time the students sought the High Commissioner’s opinion on the Army’s role in keeping the country in a state of ‘continuous turmoil’, on corruption at the top and on what they described as doctoring of economic and poverty data.

Dr Lodhi’s opening remarks and her answers to the questions, however, made it appear as if the two, the students and the High Commissioner, were talking about two different countries but of the same name — Pakistan.

Dr Lodhi blamed the policies of President Ziaul Haq, the Afghan war of the 1980s and what she called ‘much government and less governance’ of the 1990s for the crisis the country was passing through today.

She said Pakistan had now turned the corner and, to prove her point, presented the official version of the economy, poverty reduction, progress on the democratic process and in the peace talks with India.

She said President Musharraf would oversee a peaceful transfer of power after the general election. “Pakistan has achieved a lot, but there is much more to be achieved.”

She disagreed with a view that the ‘problems’ in Balochistan and Waziristan were analogous with the Palestine and Kashmir questions. The questioner asked her why the Army was not applying the same remedy in the two regions – eliminating the root causes of alienation --- which it is proffering to the US and India for resolving the Middle East and Kashmir conflicts.

She parried a question that if corruption had been eliminated at the top, why the federal cabinet was full of those who had been in the NAB books at one time or the other.

About her own motivation for serving a military government, she said she had tried to give back to her country her best in every role that she had taken up.

KASHMIR: The next day I heard an Indian author of a new book, Demystifying Kashmir, repeat what now sounds more like a cliché. “So long as the threat of militancy remains, one should not expect India to demilitarise occupied Kashmir,” said author Navnita Chadha Behra. She alleged the terror infrastructure was still intact while the cross-LoC militancy had come down considerably.

She was replying to a questioner who had sought her views on President Musharraf’s four-step formula for resolving the Kashmir dispute.

The occasion was the launch of her book at the IISS, an influential think tank in Britain.

A professor at the Jamia Millia in New Delhi, Ms Behra said it was a huge point of departure for somebody at the helm of the Pakistan Army to talk about demilitarisation, self-governance, joint management and making LoC irrelevant.

In her opinion, making the LoC irrelevant was a brilliant conceptual move `because you shift the lens from territory. You allow the people to meet across both sides, but how are you going to translate it into reality?’

She also agreed with a speaker that India could meet the ‘self-government’ requirement by restoring Article 370 of its constitution in its original form. But she quipped: :”What would that mean to Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir? Would Pakistan grant the same level of self-governance to the people of these regions?”

Ms Behra said she saw a hope in the peace process between Pakistan and India as the two governments had given up their entrenched positions on Kashmir – India giving up its insistence that Kashmir is its integral part and Pakistan abandoning its demand for a plebiscite.

AFGHANISTAN: Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, who was here last week on his first visit to the United Kingdom, met some London-based media figures last week. He said he was confident that Pakistan would never be able to fence the border with Afghanistan as it was beyond the `financial and technical capacity of Islamabad’.

He said the mining of the 2,000-km-long Durand line was also not feasible. He said Pakistan had made the move for `purely propaganda purposes’.

Interestingly, while he was concerned about Pakistan’s `hegemonic ambitions’, he did not seem to be worried at all about Iran’s nuclear plans or its regional ambitions.

He said the Afghan government and parliament were not competent to declare an amnesty for people like Mullah Omar and Hekmatyar. “They are war criminals and had committed crimes against humanity. Their cases rest with the UN.”

ISLAMABAD: On Jan 19, the Foreign Office issued a press release announcing that President Gen Pervez Musharraf would embark on a five-nation tour — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and UAE — in a bid to launch a new Middle East peace initiative. The bottom-line was: The situation in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq continues to be a source of deep global concern for the Islamic world and Pakistan. That it calls for harmony within the Muslim world and urgent need for a unified strategy for a way forward and to address the other new and ominous dangers looming on the horizon.

The announcement came as a total surprise as there had been no hint or speculation about it. As expected it has evoked much curiosity about the plan and what Pakistan was trying to sell to the Muslim world. Speculations and suspicions continue about what exactly prompted it. Many are intrigued by the timing and believe it is part of the US-dictated agenda which includes recognition of Israel. Critics of President Musharraf believe that it is a stunt to divert attention from the real challenges at home, an attempt by the president to keep himself in the limelight and remain relevant for the international community, particularly the US.

Another view is that he is seeking to take the lead in the Middle East diplomacy to bolster his international standing in the run-up to the general elections due this year.

While the president’s Middle East peace initiative may have come as a surprise, the fact is that for the last two years or so he has been vociferously advocating the need to address the Palestine issue at all international forums and urging major world powers, including the US and the EU, to resolve it. In fact he even took a promise from President Bush that if he was re-elected for a second term in office he would take Palestine issue as a priority area. During his three-week visit to the US and Europe in September 2006, President Musharraf raised the Palestine question at almost every forum he addressed. He underscored the need for an early settlement of the Palestinian dispute as part of efforts to combat extremism in the Muslim world, calling the dispute the "root-cause" of terrorism and extremism. And indeed Palestine has been one of the main issues that have been exploited by Al Qaeda and Taliban to motivate militant support for terrorist attacks.

Pakistan has always supported the Palestinian cause and forcefully advocated implementation of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in security and peace. Also, it welcomed the Beirut initiative of 2002 and emphasised the need for implementation of the Quartet road map.

According to informed foreign policy circles, the Middle East peace initiative had been in the works ‘on the quiet’ for over a month and key foreign policy institutions were consulted on the matter. Apparently what triggered it was a green signal to President Musharraf from a key neighbour of Palestine that he should come forward and play a role in this regard. The process gained momentum when the Egyptian foreign minister arrived in Pakistan in the second week of December 2006, carrying a personal letter from the Egyptian president for President Pervez Musharraf. The Egyptian foreign minister had also brought with him some specific ideas.

It was around the same time that a couple of Arab countries that had been initially not so keen on Pakistan leading from the front on the Palestine question themselves approached President Musharraf to step in. They wanted Pakistan to do its bit to avert an explosive situation in the Middle East that threatened to endanger global peace.

There is realisation now that President Musharraf is well poised to take on this role. He is not a controversial figure as he has no political issues or frictions with any leading Arab or non-Arab Muslim countries. Moreover, with his international standing as a moderate and progressive leader, he commands respect also outside the Muslim world and has backing of all powers that be.

Another key factor that has prompted the ME peace initiative is the deep concern about the growing sectarian strife in countries like Iraq and Lebanon that could have grave ramifications for Pakistan and other Muslim countries. This has been a wake-up call for the Muslim world about a seemingly calculated attempt to create dissention among the Muslims along sectarian lines. It was feared that certain powers may use the sectarian card to create further divisions within the Muslim world. Also for first time ever there are two warring factions — Hamas and Fatah — within Palestine. This explains why the president did not consult the Palestinian leadership before launching his Middle East peace initiative — the prime focus of which is said to be the Palestine issue. “Who does he talk to?” is how one insider summed up the predicament when asked about it.

Hence, the most pressing issue at this point is to bring unity among the two groups and efforts are under-way through mediation of Saudi King Abdullah who is said to be the moving spirit behind the ME peace process.

As Pakistan’s Middle East diplomacy picks up steam with full blessings of Saudi Arabia, the well-guarded peace plan remains largely elusive. The official word is that “it is work in progress” and that the plan would be made public once it crystallises. While the exact ingredients are not yet known, it is believed that the president has a couple of specific “ideas” on the issue for which he has managed to muster a great deal of support from the key Arab and non-Arab Muslim states he just visited. There have been back and forth consultations between Pakistan and key influential Muslim countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, since President Musharraf formally launched the initiative more than two weeks back.

An indication of the great importance being attached to the initiative is that President Musharraf was accompanied by the foreign minister and the foreign secretary on all his nine Middle East-related visits. This is a notable departure from the standard practice.

The president will not be visiting any other country for now. So what has emerged from his peace mission and what are the ideas under discussion so far? Indications are that one of the suggestions is that Palestine becomes a member of the UN. There has been talk about an alternate Muslim force in the context of Iraq. It is not clear whether a demand for direct Muslim representation in the Quartet on Middle East is also on the cards. Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam evaded the question when asked about it at a news briefing on Tuesday. One likely outcome of President Musharraf's efforts and his proactive engagement with Saudi Arabia is a summit conference of like-minded leaders of seven or so Muslim countries within a month or so. According to one insider, the meeting will most probably be hosted by Saudi Arabia in Makkah. The countries to be invited to the summit meeting will include Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and Turkey. At the moment, hectic consultations are under-way to reach an agreement on the parameters of such a conference and it’s follow-up. A roadmap for peace in the Middle East is likely to be announced at the proposed conference. Subsequently at the ICFM meeting in Pakistan in mid-May, the OIC foreign ministers will discuss the plan in greater detail. A contact group could be formed with representation of the seven countries invited to the summit in Makkah plus some other countries like Iran and Syria that could play a decisive role in bringing ‘harmony’ in the Muslim world, the code word for sectarian peace.

Apparently Pakistan has informally sounded out the Americans as well as some other major western powers, including the EU about the peace initiative. Interestingly, Pakistan’s Middle East diplomacy also coincides with a meeting of the Quartet in the US. Notes would be exchanged when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who undertook a tour of the Middle East recently, arrives here around the third week of this month. This will be one of the key topics of discussions when she meets President Musharraf.

While engagement with Israel is not on the cards for now, there are indications that a positive response to the Middle East peace initiative would ultimately pave the way for it. A dialogue with Israel even before its recognition is a possibility that keen observers do not rule out.