THE public education system needs to foster a tolerant citizenry, capable of competing in the labour market and supportive of democratic norms within the country and peace with the outside world. This coneasurewill hel to reform a deeply-flawed national curriculum that promotes xenophobia and religious intolerance .

Reflecting the centralised state’s ideology, the curriculum also overemphasises national cohesion at the expense of regional diversity. The histories of the provinces that comprise Pakistan, and regional languages and cultures are largely absent.

Shockingly, there is an excruciating mismatch between the national curriculum 2006 [public school textbooks are based on it] and Article 22(1) of the Constitution. This article says: “No person attending any educational institution shall be required to receive religious instructions, or take part in any religious ceremony, or attend religious worship, if such instruction, ceremony or worship relates to a religion other than his own.”

Despite this sacrosanct injunction, the National Curriculum 2006 required children of all faiths from classes I to III to be taught at the expense of inclusive religious diversity and broadbased plurality.

The distorted version of Islam taught to children contributes to intolerance and sectarian tensions. Pragmatically, provincial governments and civil society should work collectively to reinvent ‘a narrative for Pakistan’. Only then will education help children become informed citizens, who reject the lure of ‘kill and be killed’ and support peace within the country and outside.

The state had better fix this anomaly sooner than later.

Saeedullah Khan Wazir

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, October 10th , 2015

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