With a curriculum that glorifies violence in the name of Islam and ignores basic history, science and math, Pakistan's public education system has become a major barrier to U.S. efforts to defeat extremist groups here, U.S. and Pakistani officials say. Western officials tend to blame Islamic schools, known as madrassas, for their role as feeders to militant groups, but Pakistani education experts say the root of the problem is the public schools in a nation in which half of adults cannot sign their own name. The United States is hoping an infusion of cash - part of a $7.5 billion civilian aid package - will begin to change that, and in the process alter the widespread perception that Washington's only interest in Pakistan is in bolstering its military.
But according to education reform advocates here, any effort to improve the system faces the reality of intense institutional pressure to keep the schools exactly the way they are. They say that for different reasons, the most powerful forces in Pakistan, including the army, the religious establishment and the feudal landlords who dominate civilian politics, have worked against improving an education system that for decades has been in marked decline...
More at The Washington Post.
Comments
I wonder if we shouldn't just leave the schools alone. An increasing number of younger Pakistanis have internet-capable cellphones and access to the web. Could these young people be reached directly over their phone screens with instruction in modern subjects?
Unfortunately, the State Department isn't set up to provide this. Its educational programs are limited to arranging for students to study in America, which only a handful of affluent students can do (if they can get visas), or sending faculty in person to other countries to teach for a year, which only a handful can do (if their personal safety is assured). A third option, distance education from U.S. institutions, charges full tuition and thus also reaches only a limited number. America does even less to provide other countries with access to secondary education, the real in need in most developing countries.
If reaching young people in societies like Pakistan should be a goal for the United States, it might be better to launch a privately backed initiative to deliver automated self-study courses optimized for cellphones that review high school subjects. These could go on servers that are open and free to young people in sensitive regions.
Connection charges could still limit the number of downloads. But we might still reach hundreds of thousands more young people than we do today in places where granting visas or sending American citizens is problematical. We could then also avoid the problems of shipping tons of money or trying to reshape established schools.
Trying to change the curriculum and the educational system are good ideas, but their impact is likely to be slow and can easily be overwhelmed by other more direct factors. (i have written in the past that I think in "national security" matters, people dont actually use their grade school education to reach decision A or B, they follow the lead of leaders of opinion, who in turn get their ideology from more immediate power politics and/or more sophisticated levels of analysis than 5th grade social studies).
For example, if the Pakistani army high command decides to dump their jihadi ideology once and for all, 500 other things would change overnight. If they dont, then pumping money into this or that corrupt educational department will make very little difference. Having said that, I am still all in favor of pumping some money in because its beneficiaries (even via routine corruption) will include many good people in Pakistan.
Fazlur Rahman was a scholar who tried to emphasize a kind of literate and philosophically sophisticated Islam (still rather orthodox, not radical liberation theology or Harvard Divinity school neo-christianity) and got the hidebound religious "scholars" very upset. His ideas also ran counter to the rising tide of wahabi and neo-wahabi influence seeping in from saudi arabia and locally represented by Maudoodi and company, so he had to leave the country. But I dont think he was ever in a position to make educational policy. I could be wrong...