ISLAMABAD, April 3: Education in Pakistan does not play its true role of developing among students the critical faculty due to faulty curricula and inept teaching , prominent scholars remarked at a seminar held here on Friday.

Organized by the Cultural Forum, Islamabad, Dr Mohammad Parvez, Chairman, Institute of Psychology in Quaid-i-Azam University, described the results of a survey of boys and girls, aged 17 years, which spotlighted the negative contribution of the content of textbooks in the schools.

In the living universe, he said the human being was unique in that it went through a prolonged childhood during which it underwent various stages of self-awareness, exploration and commitment as part of the development of an individual into a rational adult having an identity.

What had happened, however, was that the curricula taught in our schools had created human beings who were brainwashed into a disproportionate commitment to religion without being given the opportunity to know what religion is. Such understanding could come only after imbibing the exploratory faculty, Dr Parvez argued.

Ms Helga Ahmed, a social activist, observed that the parents' right to decide what their offspring should learn was completely ignored by the government while enforcing curricula.

Dr Parvez wondered what good parents could do in such a situation. The parents of today were the students of yesterday who had got the negative messages of curricula instilled into their minds. The same was true of teachers. For this reason, the curricula and the quality of teaching could not be treated separately from each other.

Dr A.H. Nayyar, professor of physics in Quaid-i-Azam University and one of the authors of the publication, 'Subtle Subversion' about the curricula, said religious fanaticism was the outcome of the system of education.

He agreed with a questioner that this system had completely neglected the development of ethical values among the people. The religious content in textbooks had not produced the kind of behaviour that would stand up to ethical standards, he added.

Prof Khawaja Masud, former principal of Gordon College, Rawalpindi, said the kind of curricula included in textbooks was meant to perpetuate the feudal hegemony. These would not change without a change in the socio-economic system of Pakistan, he stressed.

Tahira Abdullah, also a social activist, brought out the hypocrisy implicit in the criticism against the 'Subtle Subversion'. Its critics, she noted, were not discussing the report but only the source of funds for its publication.