by Zubair Torwali*
* The author is a community activist, researcher, author, and educator based in Bahrain, Swat Pakistan. Zubair has published works in English, Urdu, and the Dardic Torwali language. He has authored and supervised a number of books in and about Torwali. His book in English, Muffled Voices, provides insight into Pakistan’s social, cultural, and political issues. The author is a prolific writer of research papers and articles written for English dailies and weeklies of Pakistan. He founded and leads Idara Baraye Taleem–o–Taraqi (IBT), an organization that focuses on education and development.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) is the north western province in Pakistan which was renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in 2010. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is culturally diverse with approximately 70 % of the total population comprising of the Pashtuns. Its main languages are Pashto, Hindko, Saraiki, Khowar and Kohistani whereas about 20 other minority languages are also spoken in the province.
The province has an interesting political and security history. It is the home of the secular nationalist political party, the Awami National Party (ANP), however, it has also been the battleground for the Pakistan Tehrik–e–Taliban (TTP) insurgency during the previous two decades. Islamic parties like the Jamiat–e–Ulema–e–Islam and Jamaat–e–Islami also have a remarkable base and following. This interesting and, often, colliding political and religious trajectory, makes Khyber Pakhtunkhwa a region where, through general elections, different political parties with different ideologies form governments and rule the province in accordance to their own beliefs and agendas, often drastically deviating from the polices of predecessors.
This political instability has adversely affected education in the province. This short paper tries to explore the ideological crafting of education by various governments in the province since 2002. The paper also touches upon the issue of choosing the appropriate language as a medium of instruction in the educational sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with a historical background of the issue of language(s) and ethnicity here.
The issue of language in education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
The people, especially the Pukhtuns, of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have always been very conscious of their language and identity. Pashto or Pukhto is said to be the mother language of approximately 70 percent of the inhabitants of the province and almost all the people of the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas, FATA, speak it. Pashto is an ancient language with the first written text – Khairul Bayan, by Bayazid Ansari, the Pir Roshan of the Roshania Movement – in the sixteenth century. Some claim that the Pashto poet Amir Karor wrote it in the eighth century.
The British used Urdu as the language in NWFP, the former name of the province, after its annexation in 1849 in a political move to distance the people of NWFP from Afghanistan, which was then emerging as a modern nation–state. In Afghanistan, Pashto was chosen as a dominant language by the 1920s, whereas, in NWFP, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan aka Bacha Khan of the Khudai Khidmatgar chose Pashto as an identity marker of the Pukhtuns by 1929. He also set up non–government schools, the Azad Schools, where Pashto was taught at the primary level; and prior to that, in 1928, he had started publishing a Pashto language magazine – Pukhtun.
In 1935, the NWFP government agreed to incorporate Pashto in the education of classes one and two. This move was resisted by the Hindu and Sikh minorities of NWFP, given the Arabic script of Pashto. Dr Khan Sahib’s government, however, made Pashto a subject of instruction at the Primary level in 1938.
Ghaffar Khan’s movement, Khudai Khidmatgar, was associated with the irredentist claim of Afghanistan to parts of NWFP; and the cause of greater Pukhtunistan. Pashto was, therefore, deemed as an identity marker of Pukhtun nationalism by the ruling class in Pakistan after the partition. This, however, could not dispel the issue of language and identity in NWFP and the issue of language, especially of Pashto, has remained central to the identity of the province.
After the creation of Pakistan, the Pashto Academy was formed in 1955 by the government in order to promote Pashto.
In 1972 the government of National Awami Party (NAP) and JUI did not adopt Pashto; and made Urdu the official language of NWFP. The government of General Zia–ul–Haq manipulated the symbols of Urdu and Islam to get legitimacy. He, however, introduced Pashto as the medium of instruction in certain areas of NWFP in 1984, and a Pashto Textbooks Translation Project was also initiated. In 1989, however, it was observed in a report that Pashto had not been appropriately taught. It was not encouraged by the teachers either.
While Pashto was a major issue in the politics and governance of NWFP, the status of the other major language, Hindko, was also raised in the province. Awareness amongst the speakers of the other languages in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, mostly endangered, is a recent phenomenon. This awareness for the preservation, promotion and revitalization of other endangered languages gradually grew since the 1990s when some socio-linguistic surveys on these languages expressed grave concerns regarding their future. The local advocates for cultural rights and language activists started voicing their community’s concerns with some vigor after 2004.
Because of this awareness the ANP led government had included five languages: Pashto, Hindko, Saraiki, Khowar and Kohistani, in 2011, to be taught at public primary schools in areas where a majority of the children spoke them as their mother tongue. Under this policy, the five languages would be taught as subjects and, for this purpose, course books in these languages have been developed up to grade four. The ANP government had also passed an Act from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly for the promotion of ‘regional’ languages in 2012 which is known as KP Regional Languages Promotion Act 2012.
After the 2013 general elections a new government of Pakistan Tehrik–i–Insaf (PTI) came into power in the province. They did not implement the regional languages act of 2012 but continued work on developing books in four of the five languages. So far, one book for each grade, up to grade four, has been developed in four languages. The fifth language, Kohistani — which is spoken in the western Kohistan region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — could not be included in the scheme because of another major contesting language, Shina Kohistani, spoken in the eastern part of Kohistan. It has an equal claim of being ‘Kohistani’.
Despite the printing and distribution of the books in the four languages, teachers have not been hired to teach these languages in the public schools where these books have been distributed. For instance, in Chitral, books in Khowar up to grade four have been distributed to the schools but extra teachers have not been recruited to teach these books.
School systems in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Like elsewhere in Pakistan, the education system in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is also divided in three main categories: public or state– owned schools, private schools and madrassahs.
Among the private schools there are subcategories based on the social class they cater to and according to the particular needs of various professions. There are the elite private schools, though fewer in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, that teach their own syllabus and the medium of instruction is entirely English. Then there are the convent missionary schools that have their own syllabus and the medium is mostly English. Furthermore, there are the army public schools and cadet colleges established and governed by the military. The medium of instruction in these schools is also English. A majority of the elite schools are in the main cities, such as, Peshawar, Abbottabad, Kohat and Mardan where wealthy parents from all over the province send their children. The convent schools are also mostly in the urban hubs and primarily cater to middle class needs.
Various political parties and other groups have their own school systems. For instance, the Hira Schools by the Jamaat–e–Islami for the low–income families and the recently established chain, Daar–e– Arqam Schools, for the lower middle class. The medium of instruction is both Urdu and English in these schools and their particular focus is on a specific Islamic ideology. Then come the ubiquitous so–called English medium schools, generally called public schools. They are considered as English medium as most of the books are in English. These schools attract a majority of students after the government owned schools.
Madrassahs are all over the province, often funded by foreign secret donors and/or established by village mosques. In places where there are no state owned or private schools, the only option available is these madrasahs. There is a sense of ‘moral security’, ‘modesty’ and ‘religious sanctity’ affiliated with these madrassahs. Parents from faraway villages, therefore, willingly send their children to madrassahs in Mardan, Peshawar, Islamabad and to other cities of Punjab.
There is a dearth of public sector schools. Therefore, in urban centres such schools are flooded with students beyond capacity, whereas, in faraway rural areas and villages these schools usually do not have the required number of students. There is a huge disparity in the number of the government primary schools for boys and girls. It is almost 50% at the primary level. Against 100 primary schools for boys there are only 50 such schools for girls. This disparity widens to 75% for boys and only 25% for girls in lower middle and secondary school levels. The hilly areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have very few schools for girls as compared to boys. For instance, in the three districts of Kohistan there are only 2 high schools (Torwali 2018) for girls; and one of these schools is at the boundary of Kohlai Palai and Shangla districts.
Discourse around education in the province
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the discourse on education is mainly focused on the issue of ‘Islamic’ identity in education. Whenever there is some need felt by any government to reform the education system, rigid Islamic political parties joined by non–political Islamist groups raise such a ruckus that the real issue is buried under the debris of uninformed charged religious discourse. These groups hold protests against any such move.
During General Musharraf’s regime (1999—2008), when Pakistan was pressed to reform its education and remove any hateful content from course books, the Mutahida Majlis–e–Amal (MMA) – a political alliance of five major religious groups in Pakistan founded in 2002 – opposed the reforms by criticizing them as foreign agendas. Later, in 2011 when the Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) coalition government in the province hinted at reforming the curriculum by making it more indigenous and pluralistic by presenting local heroes instead of Arab heroes, the religiopolitical parties, particularly the student’s wing of Jamaat–e–Islami, the Islami Jamiat–e–Talaba (IJT), protested ‘over the removal of verses on jihad from Islamiyat textbooks and the deletion of stories about Muslim heroes from Pakistan Studies books for different grades.’ (Yusufzai 2014) Finally, the government succumbed to this pressure and decided to withdraw the reforms (Torwali 2014). When Pakistan Tahreek–i–Insaaf (PTI) formed the government in the province with the support of Jamaat–e–Islami (JI) in 2013, the latter found the opportunity to push changes in the various courses according to its wishes. JI also wanted to insert chapters on its founder Maulana Abul Ala Maududi and Qazi Hussain Ahmad. They failed to achieve that and lodged protests when the books were in the process of printing. Contention over the issue of content in the textbooks is an ongoing fight and emerges any time any intent to reform the course books is shown by any government.
The other prominent discourse on education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the divide between private and state–run schools. This issue was especially raised by the PTI government. At times, this administration made it mandatory for government officials to enroll their children in state–run schools. Ironically, some of the government officials and politicians associated with the government also own private schools in the cities. As many as 34,000 students left private schools and joined the state–run schools in 2016 solely because of increased poverty. The PTI government, however, jumped to take the credit. According to a survey concluded in May 2016 by Adam Smith International, 50% of these students left private schools due to poverty, whereas, another 28% left because the parents of the students thought the standard of the private schools had deteriorated. ‘The reason for changing schools even in this case is not because of an improved quality or standard of education at government schools’(Ashfaq 2016), as the government told us.
The third issue in the educational discourse of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the teaching of local languages – mostly provincial languages. This has remained a recurring issue, however, with the resumption of democracy in Pakistan in 2008 and especially after devolving education to provinces through the 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010, this has become a highly contested subject in the province.
By 2012 the ANP government in the province inducted five languages as subjects to be taught in Public primary schools where they were mother tongue of a majority of the children. The ‘Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Regional Languages Authority Act’ was passed by the government for the teaching of these regional languages.
The PTI government that replaced ANP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa did not bother to establish the Regional Languages Promotion Authority Act. It, however, continued the policy of developing primary school material, primers, of the four additional languages to be taught at the primary schools as subjects. Primers for Hindko, Saraiki and Khowar were developed while the same could not be done for Kohistani due to a dispute over the ‘Kohistani’ language. In the region of Kohistan two major languages, namely Indus Kohistani and Shina Kohistani, are spoken. The two communities in Kohistan regard their respective languages – Indus Kohistani and Shina Kohistani – as Kohistani. Because of this dispute the developments of primers in these languages was stopped. There are probably more speakers of Shina Kohistani than of Indus Kohistani. The dispute could, however, be resolved by including both the languages.
Education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under MMA
The alliance of religious parties, Mutahida Majlis–e–Amal (MMA), came to power in the erstwhile NWFP—North West Frontier Province— in 2002. It was a coalition partner of General Musharraf’s government. By then Musharraf’s government had largely maintained the education plan of its predecessor, the Sharif government; and based on that it had adopted the Ten–Year Perspective Development Plan (2001—2011) in June 2001 with its primary goal of universal primary education by 2010 and 78% literacy rate by 2011.(Group 2004). Musharraf’s quest for education reform was mainly influenced by the United States of America in the wake of 9/11. The 9/11 Commission Report by the Bush administration recommended a long–term U.S. commitment to provide support for Pakistan, including in the area of improving education. The Congress endorsed this recommendation and proposed its support to ‘improve and expand access to education for all Pakistani citizens’(Kronstadt 2004). In Musharraf’s reform policy of ‘enlightened moderation’ it was often asserted that the curriculum taught at Pakistani madrassahs were among the most ‘daunting’challenges(Kronstadt 2004). Madrassahs were considered by both the Pakistani and US governments as centers that promoted extremism and terrorism. A large number of such religious seminaries were/are influenced by MMA’s major partner, Jamiat–e–Ulema–e–Islam, Fazal Rahman faction (JUI–F), and the second big partner in the MMA, Jamat–e–Islami (JI).
With this backdrop, the MMA came to power in the then NWFP through the 2002 general elections and was headed by Maulana Fazal Rahman who was elected as opposition leader in the National Assembly in May 2004. Under the Local Government Plan 2002, the Education Sector Reforms – an instrument of implementation of the Ten–Year Perspective Development Plan (2001—2011) adopted in June 2002 – devolved to the district governments level instead of the provincial governments. Under this scheme the district governments had the responsibility to identify the needs and locations for new schools, arrange funds for their construction, monitor existing schools and carry out annual evaluations of the students.
Before the 18th Amendment Pakistan had a highly centralized and controlled syllabus system which provided curriculum guidelines to the provincial Textbook Boards. These Textbook Boards then, with the specific political party’s government in the provinces, inserted content, as per the themes identified in the central curriculum guidelines, of its own choice.
In 2000, the then NWFP education ministry notified that English would be the medium of instruction after class six in many of the public schools. In 2003 English was made compulsory in primary schools across the country from grade one. (Group 2004)
While seeking the support of the MMA for passing the LFO — legal framework order — Musharraf’s government backtracked from the goals of the ‘National Curriculum 2000 – a ‘Conceptual Framework’ formulated by the National Committee on Education in 1999.
MMA opposed any intention by Musharraf’s government to reform education, especially the curriculum. MMA, thus, continued Islamic teachings in the province according to their political and religious inclinations. They even thwarted any step for reforming education in the federal level.
Education under Awami National Party
Education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under the Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) coalition government witnessed some improvement in the curriculum as well as in policy making and establishing more universities. As a result of the general election in 2008 the nationalist party, ANP, and PPP formed a coalition government in NWFP, with ANP as the leading party in the coalition.
Before the 18th Constitutional Amendment was passed in 2010, the federal education ministry designed the national curriculum. The Provincial Textbook Boards were to develop educational materials under the supervision of the center. No provincial board could independently make changes in the books. They had to seek the approval of the Federal Curriculum Wing. This was a highly centralized curriculum. The highly centralized education system also imposed the state’s ideology of forced homogeneity at the expense of regional diversity. Histories of the provinces, and regional languages and cultures were largely absent from the teaching material in Pakistani public schools.
In the wake of the 18th Amendment, education was devolved to the jurisdiction of the provinces. The provinces could now develop their indigenous education policies and reforms. NWFP was also renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through this amendment.
The period of the coalition government of ANP and PPP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was mostly chaotic and tumultuous as the province and the adjacent Federally Administered Tribal Areas were in the grip of the Taliban insurgency and militancy. Bomb blasts, suicide attacks and target killings in the province were a routine occurrence. The scenic valley of Swat and the adjacent districts in upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were taken over by Taliban militants in 2009. Hundreds of schools in the areas were destroyed by the Taliban. Girls in Swat were forcefully stopped by the Taliban from going to school in January 2009.
In addition to the destruction of the economy, lives and infrastructure brought about by Taliban militants, the province faced the devastating floods of July 2010 that exacerbated the situation by further destroying much of the infrastructure, including schools. The challenges of rehabilitation in the wake of militancy and floods made it extremely difficult for the coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to fully recover and implement the reforms that they had envisioned.
Education under Pakistan Tehrik–i–Insaf (PTI)
Before the general election in 2018, the Pakistan Tahrik–i–Insaaf (PTI) rhetoric included, ‘an equal education in Pakistan’. In pursuance of this goal the PTI Federal Government started work on reforming the curriculum.
They have by now designed a curriculum named, ‘Single National Curriculum’. This curriculum has, once again, spurred a debate on education in Pakistan. Initially, the people had bought the ‘equal education’ rhetoric as it seemed plausible and was needed. However, the outcome of the entire exercise has been a set of rules and guidelines for developing textbooks instead of making the education system equal for all.
The PTI government in Islamabad has backtracked from its promise of making the education system equal for all segments in Pakistan. It has resorted to making the curriculum more homogeneous instead.
Major questions raised by prominent educationists on the ‘Single National Curriculum’ point to a lack of capacity on the part of the government, a lack of consultation with educationists and teachers and the continued ambiguity on the issue of the medium of instruction or language of teaching.
People also wonder why the federal government feels the need to work on a ‘Single National Curriculum’ when the subject of education has already devolved to the provincial level through the 18th Constitutional Amendment. There has been talk of reversing the 18th Amendment. Is the ‘Single National Curriculum’ being developed in anticipation of this reversal?
Many experts also see the ‘Single National Curriculum’ as conceding more space to religious elements as it suggests more religious teaching even though the curriculum in Pakistan is already full of religious teachings.
The question of language in the ‘Single National Curriculum’ is still ambiguous. Its slogan suggests One Nation, One Curriculum in One Language. A federal minister, in a TV interview, expressed that it is up to the provinces to choose the language or languages they choose to teach in. However, in the same interview he asserted that in Sindh the language would be Sindhi whereas in Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa it would be Urdu.
Provincial and regional languages in Sindh and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have a long history and the people of these provinces are very sensitive about them. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, speakers of other languages also demand space for their languages in the education system. The PTI government is not understanding and realizing these feelings and sensitivities of the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
References:
- (2014). Education Reform in Pakistan. Brussel, International Crisis Group.
- Ashfaq, M. (2016) Public vs private schools: KP’s fight for educational reform. Herald
- Group, I. C. (2004). Pakistan: Reforming the Education Sector. Islamabad/ Brussels, ICG: 6.
- Kronstadt, A. (2004). Education Reform in Pakistan, The Library of Congress.
- Torwali, Z. (2014). Tampering with the curriculum. Daily Times.
- Torwali, Z. (2018) Three districts, two schools The News International
- Yusufzai, A. (2014) Dialogue The News On Sunday
