CURRICULUM REFORM IN PAKISTAN: The Need for Integration and Appreciation of Diversity

By Amna Afreen

I have written this book in an effort to explore how the history of Pakistan has resulted in the critical problems weighing down its education system. The book examines the questions: Why and how has a small elite class come to rule Pakistan? And how has their rule worsened the country’s problems? The focus will be to critically examine the elements of the Pakistani national curriculum and madrasas and their effects on Pakistani society. The book represents the fusion of my experiences in Pakistan with extensive literature analysis, interviews, and textbook analysis. This research began when I came to the United States in January 2015 through the SAR program. I wanted to know the answers to profoundly unsettling questions. How can a society be so intolerant that a scholar educated solely in Pakistan is disregarded and assassinated while many Western-educated scholars with traditional insular thoughts are not only appreciated but flourishing? I wanted to know why Pakistani elites have so much power and freedom while lower classes are profoundly oppressed. Elites who barely pay taxes have been in power for generations while those that pay taxes suffer from sky-high inflation. The influential religious leaders mostly belong to the elite class while their followers are mostly lower class. Ruling families and social classes mostly control appointed positions. Do those in power not have a responsibility to speak on issues of social justice rather than limiting themselves in claiming that theirs is the only true form of Islam? Why don’t they work to end the disparity of quality education between classes in Pakistan? Instead, many elites run their own lucrative elite Islamic schools. More importantly, why do the ulama (which literally means “those who possess knowledge [ilm], particularly of Islam”) maintain a tight hierarchical system in the madrasa (Islamic seminary)
community that rarely allows poor intelligent students to attain leadership positions? Why are the ulama silent in the face of ruthless murder of and discrimination against Pakistani minorities?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Feb 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662915345

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Before delving into Pakistan’s education system, readers must understand basic realities of life in Pakistan. This will provide a context for many of the problems facing Pakistan today, which can be traced back to educational inequities. Education is the only channel to better futures. Education represents both a right and need and occupies a central role in the determination of individual standards of living. People’s health and happiness, their economic security, opportunities, and social status—each is affected by education.² Education should be a major issue for leaders who claim to want to bring about social change.

The current population of Pakistan is approximately 207,774,000.³ According to a recent census, the population is 96.28 percent Muslim, 1.59 percent Christian, 1.6 percent Hindu, 0.22 percent Ahmadi, and 0.25 percent Scheduled Castes. The rural regions are 9.77 percent Hindu and the urban regions in Sindh are 3.08 percent Hindu.⁴

Roughly four out of ten Pakistanis live in multidimensional poverty, which reflects the deprivation in areas related to health, education, and standard of living in addition to income and wealth.⁵ There are profound disparities between the extremely wealthy and extremely poor.⁶ How much wealth do the Pakistani elites actually hold? The answer is not simple because the country does not generate comprehensive data on household income and wealth distribution. According to information provided by the World Bank’s 2015 World Development Indicators,⁷ the income share held by the wealthiest 10 percent was 28.9 percent, while the lowest 10 percent only held 3.9 percent.⁸

Unemployment and Sectarian Divides

According to a recent report, over 500,000 graduates are unemployed in Pakistan.⁹ The total unemployment rate stayed at 5.9 percent of the labor force for 2016 and 2017.¹⁰ The labor force has been estimated at approximately 45.5 million.¹¹ Pakistan is currently the third least tolerant country in the world in terms of social acceptance of religious diversity, according to the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life.¹²

Radicalization

In 2013 alone there were 355 terrorist attacks in Pakistan that resulted in 5,379 deaths. Many attacks were aimed directly at military forces. The situation worsened in 2014, a year that concluded with the December 16 terrorist attacks by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants on the Army Public School in the Peshawar cantonment. The attack caused 150 fatalities, including 143 children, many of them offspring of army employees, and a number of the school staff. In contrast, 2016 witnessed 172 attacks resulting in 1,260 victims, including 540 civilians, 208 military force employees, and 512 terrorists. Between April 2018 and July 2018 alone there were 17 attacks that resulted in 150 victims, including 46 civilians, 51 military force employees, and 53 terrorists. Moreover, in the days prior to the July 2018 election, the country experienced numerous attacks on electoral candidates, including one in Baluchistan that killed almost 140 people—the deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan since the Army Public School bloodshed in 2014.¹³ Often, those trained and recruited by the extremists are educated young men, not only illiterate youth. Sindh’s Counter Terrorism Department said that out of 500 militants currently held in Sindh’s jails, 64 hold a master’s degree and 70 have a bachelors.¹⁴

Education in Pakistan

The right to education in Pakistan is guaranteed in Article 25A of the Constitution: Right to education: The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children under the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as may be determined by law.¹⁵ The education system in Pakistan begins with preschool from the ages of three to five years, followed by the primary school from grades one to five, and then middle school from grade six to eight. Middle school students take the Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) in ninth and tenth grade, generally called the matriculation exam. If they pass the exam, they are eligible to attend college for eleventh and twelfth grades and receive a Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC). After that, some students are admitted to professional colleges or universities. According to the Pakistan Higher Education Commission report for 2013–14, three million students enrolled in grades thirteen through sixteen in 1,086 degree colleges and 161 universities in Pakistan.¹⁶ The Pakistan Integrated Household Survey illustrated that public schools account for 73 percent of enrollment, and private schools represent 26 percent.¹⁷

In 2015 the government estimated that there were 260,903 educational institutions with 41,018,384 students and 1,535,461 primary and secondary school teachers. The system comprises 180,846 public institutions and 80,057 private institutions, 31 percent are private, and 69 percent are public.¹⁸ Today, Pakistan’s educational system consists of several strata: government schools, private English-medium schools accessible to the middle class, Army Public schools, cadet schools, elite English-medium schools accessible to the upper class, exclusive Islamic private schools accessible only to affluent families related to the Ahl-i-Hadith or Deobandi sects, Islamic private schools for lower-middle classes, mosque schools, and madrasas.

Each provincial government funds its public schools. The governments schools, the non-elite English schools, the non-elite Islamic schools, and the mosque schools use the national curriculum set by the curriculum wing of the ministry of education of each province. The private elite English schools are in elite neighborhoods and provide a world-class, quality education. Most of the private elite English schools follow the Certificate/GCE, Ordinary Level, and Advanced Level curricula, i.e., the students take the University of Cambridge exams. There are Islamic schools in elite neighborhoods that have high tuition fees and similar quality standards of curriculum and faculty as the elite English schools. With the addition of religious subjects, they generally follow the curriculum of elite English schools. Non-elite English schools are private schools present in neighborhoods that lack elite schools. They have low fees but a substandard quality of education that typically follows the English version of the national curriculum. Similarly, non-elite Islamic schools follow the national curriculum—many of them follow the famous IQRA’ publication’s Islamic version of the national curriculum.

In Karachi, monthly tuition fees range from Rs. 1000 to Rs. 117,000, depending on whether enrollment is in a non-elite Islamic or elite Islamic school. Additional costs include charges for books, computers, and vital admission fees and security deposit payments of approximately Rs.100,000 for several schools.¹⁹ Even in public schools, low-income households struggle to meet the expense of sending their children to school. While government schools are usually less expensive than private schools, they sometimes charge tuition, registration, or exam fees, and almost always require that students’ families pay for related expenditures that include stationery, notebooks, uniforms, book bags, and shoes. Textbooks are sometimes free at government schools, but occasionally families must pay.²⁰ The cadet schools provide high-quality education and are government subsidized but they charge high fees for training students in preparation for the military schools.

Madrasas provide free education, shelter, and food to orphans and poor children. Roughly 35,000 institutions are registered madrasas in Pakistan.²¹ According to Jishnu Das, senior economist at the World Bank, only 1.5 percent²² of students are enrolled in Pakistani madrasas. Their impact is greater, however, as the general public is influenced by their Friday sermons and media programs. These religious schools are divided into those serving elites and those serving lower classes. They are traditionally funded mostly through private donations, but in some cases through funding from countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran. The curriculum in religious schools is established by their sect’s Ulama.

However, despite the varying opportunities for education, substantial numbers of Pakistani children are not in schools (Figure 1–3). According to the 2016 Alif Ailaan report, 41 percent of students drop out before finishing primary school. 47 percent i.e., 24 million children are out of school in Pakistan. Seventy-seven percent of out-of-school Pakistani children have never been to school and 23 percent dropped out.²³ Hence, over 18 million children have never seen the inside of a classroom.²⁴ Only 51 percent of women in Pakistan have ever attended school, and in rural areas, the number drops to 40 percent.²⁵ By grade six, 59 percent of girls are out of school, versus 49 percent of boys. Only 13 percent of girls are still in school by ninth grade.²⁶ Disparities by gender, socioeconomic status, and geography are significant; in rural Sindh, 65 percent of the poorest children have never attended school, and in Baluchistan, 75 percent of girls are out of school.²⁷ Variations in levels of education by geographic region, as determined by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics,²⁸ are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Educated Population by Level of Education ²⁹

Figure 1: Percentage of Out-of-School Children between the Ages of 5 and 16 Years³⁰

Figure 2: Percentage of Out-of-School Girls between the Ages of 5 and 16 Years³¹

Figure 3: Percentage of Children between the ages of 5 and 16, who have never attended school³²

In total, 48 million people are illiterate in Pakistan, nearly half of the adult population. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey, 2017–2018, as reported in the press, the literacy rate for Pakistan as a whole, which includes individuals ten years old and above, is 58 percent. The national net enrollment for primary-level education was 54 percent, ranging from Punjab’s 59 percent to Baluchistan’s 33 percent.³³ "Of those children who do go to school, the vast majority receive a poor-quality education. Forty-three percent of government school facilities are in a dangerous or dilapidated condition and lack basic necessities such as furniture, bathrooms, dividing walls, electricity, and running water. Twenty-one percent of government primary schools operate with a single teacher and 14 percent with a single classroom. Corporal punishment is widespread and remains unchecked. Budget allocations for education are insufficient and available funds are not used.³⁴

The 2015 independent Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) reported that only 44 percent of third graders in rural schools (both public and private) could read a sentence in Urdu and of those who remained in school through fifth grade, only 55 percent could. The same situation is the case with science at a fourth-grade level. In 2006, 67 percent of students scored below average in the National Education Assessment System (NEAS) assessment of fourth-grade science. The condition worsened in 2014, when the most current iteration of the NEAS assessment revealed that 79 percent of students had scored below average. In general, Pakistan’s students score disappointingly in reading and mathematics in every major province.³⁵ Approximately 44 percent of children in fifth grade cannot read a tale in Urdu, Sindhi, or Pashto and 48 percent of children in fifth grade cannot read a sentence effortlessly in English. In fifth grade, 49 percent of children cannot execute easy two-digit division.³⁶

Islamization of Knowledge

In order to understand Pakistan’s education system, it is important to highlight the reality of the Islamization of knowledge and how it is practiced. According to the International Institute of Islamic Thought,

In the universities of the Muslim world, non-Muslim books, achievements, worldview, problems, and ideals are currently being taught to Muslim youths. . . . This situation must change immediately. There can be no doubt that Muslim academics must master all the modern disciplines in order to understand them completely and to achieve an absolute command of all that they have to offer. This is the first prerequisite. Then, they must integrate the new knowledge into the corpus of the Islamic legacy by eliminating, amending, reinterpreting, and adapting its components as the worldview of Islam and its values dictate. . . . The task of Islamizing knowledge (in concrete terms, to Islamize the disciplines or, better yet, to produce university-level textbooks recasting some twenty disciplines in accordance with Islamic visions) is among the most difficult to realize.³⁷

While explaining the goals of the Islamization of knowledge, professor of law and society at Middlesex University and co-editor of Critical Muslim Ziauddin Sardar defined it as a process that gives consideration to the objectives, norms, and ultimate goal of revelation. Muslim scholars must integrate western knowledge by eradicating, altering, reinterpreting, and reconstructing it as the worldview of Islam and its values prescribe. For each field of study, scholars must establish the precise significance to the philosophy of Islam.³⁸

The Importance of Education

Every human has the right not only to obtain an education but also to obtain a high-quality education. A high-quality education system should manage to offer all children and young adults an inclusive education and suitable training for public and private life. This must be available to all students regardless of parents’ earnings, skin color, gender, language, religion, political or other opinion, or national or social origin.³⁹ Both men and women have an equal need for education, regardless of age. Education should be used to address moral obligations and duties to the collective societal progress. Education should generate a sense of civic responsibility for all people.

While true that Pakistan’s education system has turned out doctors and engineers, among other revered professions, the education does not train students to counter violence and bigotry. There is evidence that, ‘the education system of Pakistan does not train a student in logical/scientific inference or critical thinking. So, he’s unable to critically dissect the indoctrinating patterns,’ Naureen Zehra, an education expert, told Voice of America (VOA). On April 13, a crowd [the on-campus mob] in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa almost casually carried wooden planks and guns to fatally beat and shoot Mashal Khan, a twenty-three-year-old journalism student who had been accused—falsely, as investigation later showed—of spreading blasphemy on social media. Then Naureen Laghari, a bright, twenty-year-old medical student from a well-educated family in Sindh province, was arrested for allegedly planning an Easter suicide attack on Lahore’s Christian community. She had pledged allegiance to Islamic State and had traveled to Syria, where she took military training.⁴⁰ Another devastating example is of a Christian sanitary worker, who died because three doctors refused to treat him as they were fasting [for Ramadan].⁴¹

Education should not only make people more conscious of their ethical and civil duties, but students should also be taught how to recognize and realize their national, societal, and individual rights. A country’s true progression over time can be measured by the quality of the education system. If a country does not have a good-quality education system, it most likely will be left behind by other countries that emphasize education. Thus, the quality of a country’s education system corresponds directly to its speed of progress. Irrespective of the global dynamics and crises that a country confronts—whether it is the eradication of poverty, the making of peace, or environmental energy issues—the solutions will inevitably include education. A country’s social and economic issues cannot be ameliorated without education.⁴² Education is a foremost determinant of the welfare of nations, as the total of micro-level individual educational experiences has significant implications for macro-societal outcomes. For these reasons, education is often at the heart of policy deliberations regarding human progress.

According to labor economist Martin Carnoy, part of the vital role education plays in improving quality of life is evident in the field of economics. This is particularly true in the world today, where a more globalized economy places a higher premium on competition in the global market. Furthermore, as a result of modern information technology, economic development, and social progress, advancement relies on the availability of human knowledge more than the availability of natural resources. Responding to new and constantly shifting circumstances in a progressively more inter-reliant world economy requires a more adaptable, effortlessly trainable workforce with the ability to access and interpret the mass of information available on the internet. The requirement of a globalized economy necessitates higher quality, more flexible systems of education to provide the future workforce with the knowledge and skills to function effectively in a new environment.

Nations with more highly educated populations are also more likely to develop better organized, more cohesive civil societies—the social capital underpinning economic and social progress in the current information-rich world. Hence, nations are now under much more pressure to create and improve education systems to develop the social and human resources required to compete in the international economy. Families are increasingly motivated to provide their children with the education necessary to enable them to find decent jobs in a more competitive atmosphere. Intensified competition facilitates growing inequality and inequity of right of entry to quality education. International agencies apply pressure on countries to meet internationally established goals for universal primary education and adult literacy. Countries that do not have the public resources to meet these demands experience difficulty when trying to decrease costs or, at least, to increase the cost-effectiveness of public education investments. This quandary often results in schools turning to a combination of public and private financing, which contributes to both equity and efficiency.⁴³

One of the aims of education is to raise students’ awareness of global citizenship. This understanding generates an environment of trust and support in society. Education facilitates the political stability, economic progress, and social development of a nation. It begets political stability as a result of a nation’s collective understanding of national rights and duties; this awareness shapes a political climate for better application of policies and greater contribution to and collaboration by citizens.

Research Goals and Questions

I have written this book in an effort to explore how the history of Pakistan has resulted in the critical problems weighing down its education system. The book examines the questions: Why and how has a small elite class come to rule Pakistan? And how has their rule worsened the country’s problems? The focus will be to critically examine the elements of the Pakistani national curriculum and madrasas and their effects on Pakistani society. The book represents the fusion of my experiences in Pakistan with extensive literature analysis, interviews, and textbook analysis.

Methodology and Sources

Combinations of materials were used in generating my analysis and conclusions. This resulted in scanning thousands of pages of text from 2015–2018. The sources include the following:

1. Interviews and discussions with scholars: I had many meetings with Professors John Esposito and Tamara Sonn and with Dr. Amr Abdalla. They all guided me towards the essence of the issues. Dwight Fee, Head Preceptor at the Harvard College Writing Program, and Janling Fu, Preceptor in Expository Writing at Harvard University, guided me towards the technicalities of writing.

2. I discussed the discrepancies between the female and male curriculum with Mualana Abdul-Rahman Salafi, Ameer-e-Jamat Ghuraba Ahle Hadees Pakistan, a leader of the religious movement, over a period of three years before and after his class on Mishkat al-Masabih, by al-Tibrizi (d. 741 H) while I was studying at the Syeda Fatima-tu-Zehra Lil Binat Madrasa from 1997–2002.

3. I had long discussions with Professor Ahsan-ul-Haq (former Chairman, Department of Arabic at the University of Karachi) about the traditional interpretations of the Quran through traditionally prevailing Hadiths and the rational perspective of religion.

4. I studied with Professor Shakil Auj, who was assassinated on September 18, 2014, exploring concepts concerning the radicalization of young minds and the lack of rational approaches to teaching the Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet of Islam.

5. I taught at Al-Huda International from 2005–2008, where most of my students were from elite schools, and I also taught at Rana Liaquat Ali Khan Government College for Home Economics Karachi, from 2011–2014. Most of my students at Rana Liquat were from middle- and lower- middle-class backgrounds.

6. A systematic review of the literature including research articles, publications, and theses. I am extremely grateful to the Harvard University libraries, the Georgetown University library, and the International Institute of Islamic Thought’s Al-Alwani and al Faruqi libraries.

7. I managed to obtain copies from Pakistan of the government schools’ Biology, Physics, and Pakistan Studies textbooks for ninth to twelfth grades and Iqra schools’ elementary curriculum for 2014–18 and studied them closely for this work. I studied Army Public School books via the Army Public School and College System Secretariat, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, 2012, accessed via http://www.apsacssectt.edu.pk/. Al-Huda International Islamic Schools’ books were accessed via http://aispk.org/. I generated the table related to these books on the basis of my analysis. Other tables were taken (by permission of the author) from Tariq Rahman’s Denizens of Alien Worlds: A survey of students and teachers at Pakistan’s Urdu and English language-medium schools and Madrassas, published in 2004 by Oxford University Press Pakistan.

8. Evaluation of (i) internet and news material, from sources considered reliable, such as websites like ResearchGate, and articles that were published by renowned universities and international agencies like UNESCO or the World Bank, etc.; (ii) documents comprising Pakistan’s national curriculum textbooks for public schools, published field research reports, and research papers from international agencies such as Amnesty International and renowned Pakistani NGOs like Alif Ailan; (iii) past education policies mentioned in works like Mumtaz Ahmad and Husnul Amin’s A Documentary History of Islamic Education in Pakistan, published in Islamabad by Emel Publications, IRD in 2016.

9. I mostly used the 2006 national curriculum because (i) the issue of ignoring diversity and imposing religion in subjects other than Islamiyat remained the same in later modifications of the National Education Policies in 2009 and 2017, and (ii) the nation is currently experiencing its effects as the adults who studied the 2006 curriculum as students come of age—studying the textbooks in school environments fostering a hatred for minorities radicalized the generation.

I have used content analysis to organize, interpret, and analyze data collected: Content analysis is potentially one of the most important research techniques in the social sciences. The content analyst views data as representations not of physical events but of texts, images, and expressions that are created to be seen, read, interpreted, and acted on for their meanings, and must, therefore, be analyzed with such uses in mind. Analyzing texts in the contexts of their uses distinguishes content analysis from other methods of inquiry.⁴⁴

Content analysis has been extensively used in scholarly work on education.⁴⁵ I have used content analysis for the following purposes:

1. To recognize bias, prejudice, or propaganda in textbooks;

2. To analyze the types and frequencies of errors (such as in spelling or grammar) in textbooks;

3. To describe existing practices in pedagogy; and

4. To determine the level of difficulty of the material.⁴⁶

I also use Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) because it is problem- and issue-oriented. It is an explicitly critical approach to relating text to relevant social problems and forms of social inequality.

Critical Discourse Analysis—is a special approach in discourse analysis which focuses on the discursive conditions, components, and consequences of power abuse by dominant (elite) groups and institutions. It examines patterns of access and control over contexts, genres, text, and talk, their properties, as well as the discursive strategies of mind control. It studies discourse and its functions in society and the ways society, especially forms of inequality, are expressed, represented, legitimated, or reproduced in text and talk. CDA does so in opposition to those groups and institutions who abuse their power, and in solidarity with dominated groups, e.g., by discovering and denouncing dominance, and by cooperating in the empowerment of the dominated.⁴⁷

When studying the place of discourse in society, CDA specifically focuses on (group) relations of power, dominance, and disparity, and the methods by which these are reproduced or opposed by social groups through text or talk. To a great extent, CDA deals with the discursively enacted or legitimated structures and strategies of dominance and resistance in social relationships of class, gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, language, religion, age, nationality, or world region. A great deal of work in CDA is about the fundamental ideologies that take part in the promulgation of or confrontation against power or disparity. Amongst the illustrative, explanatory, and pragmatic objectives of CDA studies is the effort to unearth, disclose, or discover what is tacit, covert, or otherwise not immediately evident in relations of discursively enacted power or fundamental ideologies. In other words, CDA particularly concentrates on the policies of exploitation and legitimization, as well as the construction of consent and other discursive means used to manipulate the minds (and, indirectly, the actions) of people in the interest of the influential. This attempt to unearth the discursive means of mental manipulation and social influence signifies a critical opposition to the powerful and the elites, and particularly those who take advantage of their power.⁴⁸

Among the literature I surveyed, there are books that are worth a special mention. One such text is Akhtar Hassan Malik’s dissertation, "A Comparative Study of Elite-English-Medium Schools, Public Schools, and Islamic Madaris in Contemporary Pakistan: The Use of Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory to Understand ‘Inequalities in Educational and Occupational Opportunities.’ It was published in 2015 in Oman by Euro-Khaleeji Research and Publishing House. Malik sat in and observed the classes of K–12 schools, including elite English-medium schools, public schools, and madrasas. His classroom observations provide evidence for the drastic differences between the performances and behaviors of the teachers in elite schools, public schools, and madrasas. Another important book is Masooda Bano’s The Rational Believer, Choices, and Decisions in the Madrasas of Pakistan, published in 2012 by Cornell University Press. Bano’s research provides unique and insightful details about the pyramid-like structure of madrasa hierarchy in Pakistan.

Another important work is Tariq Rahman’s Denizens of Alien Worlds: A Survey of Students and Teachers at Pakistan’s Urdu and English Language-medium Schools and Madrassas, published in 2004 by Oxford University Press Pakistan. Rahman has sought to navigate the uneven, complex, and multi-layered terrain confronting those who aspire to challenge structural inequalities in Pakistani society. His arguments are based on government data, empirical evidence, personal experience, and reflexive observations. His work successfully uses policy documents and official census data to effectively outline the link between educational apartheid and the need for greater social cohesion and social justice in Pakistani society. This notable work covers the entire realm of customary schooling, including all of the major types of schools, informal education, and post-school governance and administration in Pakistan.

The other significant work that is worth mentioning in regard to curriculum reform is Maryam Siddiqa Lodhi’s Politics of Madrassa Reforms in Pakistan, Islamization and Enlightened Moderation, Madrassa Reforms in Pakistan Between Islamization and Enlightened Moderation, published by Iqbal International Institute for Research and Dialogue at the International Islamic University, Islamabad in 2016. Lodhi has focused her work on the era of Generals Zia and Musharraf. While both military leaders’ educational policies appear very different (Zia’s intense Islamization on all levels versus Musharraf’s modernization) she shows that their thinking paralleled each other, and their ultimate objectives were similar. However, Lodhi focuses only on the issue of incorporation of national curriculum into madrasas. This is a problem in much of the literature: for the most part, scholars ignore the madrasa curriculum issue while they address the incorporation of the national curriculum in madrasas. I found a dearth of discussion of the development of madrasa curriculum itself.

2 Rita Johan, Johan Harley, Education Nowadays. International Journal of Educational Science and Research (IJESR) ISSN(P): 2249-6947; ISSN(E): 2249-8052 Vol. 4, Issue 5, Oct 2014, 51-56 accessed on May 3, 2020, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274704027_EDUCATION_NOWADAYS

3 Papulation Census, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Government of Pakistan, accessed on Feb 01, 2020, http://www.pbs.gov.pk/content/population-census

4 Population by Religion, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Government of Pakistan, Accessed on Jan 08, 2020 http://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files//tables/POPULATION%20BY%20RELIGION.pdf

5 UNDP Pakistan, Pakistan’s new poverty index reveals that 4 out of 10 Pakistanis live in multidimensional poverty, June20, 2016, http://www.pk.undp.org/content/pakistan/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2016/06/20/pakistan-s-new-poverty-index-reveals-that-4-out-of-10-pakistanis-live-in-multidimensional-poverty.html, accessed on Jan 08, 2020.

6 Shahbaz Rana, 40% Pakistanis live in poverty, The Express Tribune, Jun 21, 2016, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://tribune.com.pk/story/1126706/40-pakistanis-live-poverty/

7 Javed Burki, How rich are the Pakistani rich? Dawn, May 2011, https://tribune.com.pk/story/169144/how-rich-are-the-pakistani-rich/, accessed on Jan 08, 2020.

8 The World Bank, Data Bank, World Development Indicators, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators

9 Jamal Shahid, Over 500,000 graduates unemployed across country, NA told, Dawn, January 18, 2018, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://www.dawn.com/news/1383666

10 Trading Economic, Pakistan Unemployment Rate, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://tradingeconomics.com/pakistan/unemployment-rate

11 Hussain H Zaidi, With Economic Expansion, Pakistan is Facing Jobless Growth, The Express Tribune, June 25, 2018, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://tribune.com.pk/story/1741689/2-economic-expansion-pakistan-facing-jobless-growth/

12 Azhar Hussain (ICRD) and Ahmad Salim with Arif Naveed (SDPI), Connecting the Dots: Education and Religious Discrimination in Pakistan, A Study of Public Schools and Madrassas, (Washington, DC: US Commission on International Religious Freedom, November 2011), p.17, PDF File, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/resources/Pakistan-ConnectingTheDots-Email(3).pdf

13 David O. Smith, Colonel, United States Army (retired), The Quetta Experience, A Study of Attitudes and Values Within the Pakistan Army, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington D.C. 2018, p.8-9.

14 Madeeha Anwar, Pakistan’s Emerging Threat: Highly Educated Youth Gravitate to Radicalization, Voice of America’s Extremism Watch Desk, May 06, 2017, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-emerging-threat-highly-educated-youth-gravitate-to-radicalization/3840686.html

15 Pakistan Const. art. XXV A, Right to Education, http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/constitution/part2.ch1.html Accessed April 24, 2018.

16 Riaz Haq, College Enrollment and Graduation Rates in Pakistan, July 2015, Pak Alumni Worldwide: The Global Social Network, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, http://www.pakalumni.com/m/blogpost?id=1119293%3ABlogPost%3A103238

17 Madiha Afzal, Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State, Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C. 2018, P.80, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://www-jstor-org.proxy.library.georgetown.edu/stable/pdf/10.7864/j.ctt1hfr16s.8.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A33e517bef3252e3e077d5fefb55357ec

18 Aftab Hussain, Education System of Pakistan: Issues, Problems and Solutions, March 2015, Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRA), accessed on Jan 08, 2020, http://www.ipripak.org/education-system-of-pakistan-issues-problems-and-solutions/

19 School Fees (as of January 2018) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nZsjNAhY0Ah9-DU6FaihrBg7A1adsCaq1zbFKOS913U/htmlview?sle=true# Accessed on November 2, 2018.

20 Shall I Feed My Daughter, or Educate Her? Barriers to Girls’ Education in Pakistan, Human Rights Watch, November 12, 2018, Accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/11/12/shall-i-feed-my-daughter-or-educate-her/barriers-girls-education-pakistan

21 Pakistan Today, July 31, 2015, Accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2015/07/31/report-says-over-35000-madrassas-operating-in-pakistan/

22 Beenish Ahmed, The Madrassa Myth: in Pakistan, Public Schools may be the Problem, PRI’s The World, August 21, 2013 · 12:45 PM EDT, Accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://www.pri.org/stories/2013-08-21/madrassa-myth-pakistan-public-schools-may-be-problem

23 Alif Ailaan, The State of Education in Pakistan, PDF File, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/alifailaan/pages/496/attachments/original/1473162927/The_State_of_Education_in_Pakistan.pdf?1473162927

24 Hafsa Chaudhry, Why do so many children drop out of Pakistani schools?, Dawn, February 25, 2016, https://www.dawn.com/news/1241630, accessed on Jan 08, 2020

25 Alif Ailaan, The State of Education in Pakistan, PDF File, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/alifailaan/pages/496/attachments/original/1473162927/The_State_of_Education_in_Pakistan.pdf?1473162927

26 Shall I Feed My Daughter, or Educate Her? Barriers to Girls’ Education in Pakistan, Human Rights Watch, Op.Cit. accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/11/12/shall-i-feed-my-daughter-or-educate-her/barriers-girls-education-pakistan

27 UNICEF Annual Report 2017, Pakistan, P.38, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://www.unicef.org/about/annualreport/files/Pakistan_2017_COAR.pdf

28 I emailed Muhammad Riaz, Deputy Census Commissioner, Census Planning & Coordination, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, to confirm the year of data collection. He replied that, It is informed that final results of Census --2017 including education level data have not been approved so far. As soon as CCI approves, the requested data will be supplied /released accordingly. Muhammad Riaz, Re: Received by Amna Afreen, May 9, 2020.

29 Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Government of Pakistan, Educated Population by Level of Education, Accessed on April 26, 2020, http://www.pbs.gov.pk/content/educated-population-level-education

30 Alif Ailaan, Heat Maps, https://www.alifailaan.pk/heat_maps, accessed on August 08, 2018, requests for permission to reproduce were not responded to.

31 Ibid.https://www.alifailaan.pk/heat_maps, accessed on Jan 08, 2020., accessed on Jan 08, 2020., accessed on Jan 08, 2020. Requests for permission to reproduce were not responded to.

32 Ibid.https://www.alifailaan.pk/heat_maps, accessed on Jan 08, 2020., accessed on Jan 08, 2020., accessed on Jan 08, 2020., accessed on Jan 08, 2020. Requests for permission to reproduce were not responded to.

33 Mumtaz Alvi, Pakistan’s literacy rate stands at 58 pc, The News, April 27, 2018, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/309542-pakistan-s-literacy-rate-stands-at-58pc

34 Pakistan’s Education Crisis, Alif Ailan, http://www.alifailaan.pk/pakistan_education_crisis, Accessed April 19, 2018.

35 Ahmad Ali, Nadia Naviwala, Should we double the education budget, or seek 100pc literacy?, Jun 07, 2017 01:47pm, accessed on Jan 08, 2020,https://www.dawn.com/news/1335342/should-we-double-the-education-budget-or-seek-100pc-literacy

36 Alif Ailaan, The State of Education in Pakistan, PDF File, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/alifailaan/pages/496/attachments/original/1473162927/The_State_of_Education_in_Pakistan.pdf?1473162927

37 International Institute of Islamic Thought, Islamization of Knowledge of Islam, General Principles and Work Plan, Islamization of Knowledge Series No. 1. Virginia, USA, 1989, p. 18-19.

38 Ziauddin Sardar, From Islamization to Integration of Knowledge. Rethinking Reform in Higher Education, From Islamization to Integration of Knowledge. Ziauddin Sardar & Jeremy Henzell-Thomas, (Herndon, VA: The International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2017), p. 93.

39 Ulf Fredriksson, Quality Education: The Key Role of Teachers, Education International Working Papers no. 14, September 2004, p.2, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, http://glotta.ntua.gr/posdep/Dialogos/Quality/ei_workingpaper_14.pdf

40 Madiha Anwar, Pakistan’s Emerging Threat: Highly Educated Youth Gravitate to Radicalization VOA News, May 06, 2017, https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/pakistans-emerging-threat-highly-educated-youth-gravitate-radicalization

41 The last hours of a Christian sanitary worker in Pakistan, BBC News, June 11, 2017, accessed on Feb 8. 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40203982

42 Rita Johan, Johan Harley, Education Nowadays. International Journal of Educational Science and Research (IJESR) ISSN(P): 2249-6947; ISSN(E): 2249-8052 Op.Cit. p.1, accessed on May 3, 2020, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274704027_EDUCATION_NOWADAYS

43 Martin Carnoy, Education for All and the Quality of Education: A Reanalysis, Background paper prepared for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2005, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations, p.1, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.526.7811&rep=rep1&type=pdf

44 Klaus Krippendorff, Content Analysis, An Introduction to Its Methodology, Sage Publications, Inc., California, 2004, p. xiii, file:///C:/Users/Amna%20Afreen/OneDrive/Documents/intro_to_content_analysis.pdf

45 Donald Ary, Lucy Cheser, Jacobs Chris Sorensen, Asghar Razavieh, Introduction to Research in Education, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2010, CA, p. 457. http://www.modares.ac.ir/uploads/Agr.Oth.Lib.12.pdf

46 Ibid.

47 Teun A. van Dijk, Aims of Critical Discourse Analysis, JD Japanese Discourse Vol. I (1995), 17-27, p. 24, accessed on Jan 08, 2020, http://discourses.org/OldArticles/Aims%20of%20Critical%20Discourse%20Analysis.pdf

48 Ibid, Pp. 17-18.

CHAPTER 2

Historical Development of Pakistan’s Education System and National Curriculum

Historical Roots of Current Problems in Pakistan’s Education System

To understand the beginnings of the issues surrounding Pakistan’s educational problems, we must look at Pakistan’s history with India prior to the partition. A basic factor that deeply influenced Pakistani society was the gradual evolution of religious identities during British rule. Two significant legacies from British rule persist: the forms of education inherited from the British and the residual elitism of the caste system.

India’s dominant social categories had always been caste and class oriented. Hence, the Mughals, the members of the Muslim dynasty of Mongol, preferred high-caste Hindus (such as the Rajput military caste)