Jinnah’s visionary youth

Throughout world history, nations that set education as their foremost priority have had an uninterrupted record of development and progress. Due to continued failure of the country to substantially invest in human development, Pakistan is unable to capitalise on its most crucial asset, its youth population. The founder of the nation was deeply concerned about the education of his people, he frequently advised Muslim students to excel in their respective fields of study and enable themselves skillfully to serve the country.

Since 18th and 19th century, due to remarkable political events in the Indian subcontinent that altered the socio-political landscape for all Indians, Muslims also suffered a predicament as they were struggling to articulate their position in the changed circumstances. In the post-1857 scenario when Indians in general and Muslims, in particular, were in a state of despair, two competing reasons for the downfall of the Muslims were put forth by the two major schools of thought. One school of thought believed that the cause of Muslims’ downfall was because of their deviation from the religious norms. This school of thought proposed that to revive the glory of Muslims’ past, it was pertinent to focus on religious education. Thus, a madressa was set up by Maulana Qasim Nanautavi in Deoband, Uttar Pradesh, primarily for dispensing religious education. The second school of thought, led by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, believed that the downfall of Muslims was because of their ignorance of modern education, i.e., science and technology and the revival of Muslims depends on their access to modern education. For this purpose, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan set up a Scientific Society and led an educational movement by setting up a school which was later upgraded to a college and then a university.

Jinnah, spearheading the movement for an independent country, was aware of the fact that only the well-educated and skilled youth could play a crucial and defining role in realising the dream of a sovereign state for Muslims and then contribute to its socio-economic development. Hence, Jinnah’s centre of hope was educated youth. Jinnah realised the importance of education to survive and compete in modern times. He constantly advised them to focus on their studies and develop freedom of thought, character and integrity. He was conscious of colonial education whose major objective was to produce obedient workers who would focus on their work only and were least concerned with what was happening in the society. In one of his speeches, Jinnah underscored the ultimate aim of colonial education by stating that, “...the system of Government existing hitherto was really to have well-trained, well-equipped clerks... The whole principle was to create a mentality, a psychology, a state of mind that an average man when he passed his BA or MA was to look for some job in Government.”

Pakistan Movement successfully led to the establishment of an independent country for Muslims. As a new country, Pakistan faced a number of serious challenges to survive; one of them was education and Jinnah was fully aware of that. Thus it was decided to organise the first educational conference in November 1947. Jinnah’s message to this conference explicitly underlined the importance he attached to education. In his message, Jinnah suggested: “... the importance of education and the right type of education cannot be over-emphasised. Under foreign rule for over a century, in the very nature of things, I regret, sufficient attention has not been paid to the education of our people, and if we are to make any real, speedy and substantial progress, we must earnestly tackle this question and bring our educational policy and program on the lines suited to the genius of our people, consonant with our history and culture, and having regard to the modern conditions and vast developments that have taken place all over the world.”

Quaid’s vision of education was very clear. It envisaged an educational system which was modern in terms of contemporary challenges but at the same time in consonant with local history and culture. Jinnah also clarified the kind of education required for Pakistan. According to him, “There is immediate and urgent need for training our people in the scientific and technical education in order to build up future economic life, and we should see that our people undertake scientific commerce, trade and particularly, well-planned industries. But do not forget that we have to compete with the world, which is moving very fast in this direction.” Besides giving a clear vision of the potential system of education Jinnah made it clear that Urdu, being a lingua-franca, would be the state language.

What happened to the educational vision of Jinnah in Pakistan? To find the answer to this question we need to look at the educational scenario of Pakistan after seventy-five years of its establishment.

The biggest educational challenge faced by Pakistan since its inception had been a large number of children’s lack of access to schools. Over the past seventy-five years, tall claims have been made about universal primary education. Various deadlines were given in different education policies but none of these deadlines was met. Even after seventy-five years, we could not set a target for literacy.

Pakistan’s current literacy rate is about 60 per cent which is less than the literacy rate of many South Asian countries, e.g., India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Currently, 22.5 million children are still out of school which is alarming. Another educational challenge Pakistan is facing is the lack of quality in mainstream educational institutions. This includes physical facilities, as well as human resources, curriculum, textbooks, pedagogy and an effective assessment system. A number of surveys reflect that students’ performance is far less than the required national standards. The other aspect of quality is the actual teaching/learning quality in schools. It is important to understand that the students’ performance is directly linked to the quality of pedagogy and educational governance in schools. The third educational challenge is the large percentage of students who drop out before they reach class five. All these challenges are further aggravated by the lack of political will at the state level. Despite lofty promises in different education policies, Pakistan spends less than 2 per cent of its GDP which is one of the lowest in the South Asian countries. The language issue which was taken up in the first educational conference kept getting complicated more with the passing years.

We are still not sure about the position of our national language, Urdu, our official language, English and our regional languages. We saw extreme decisions regarding the fate of English and Urdu during the different regimes in Pakistan.

The mainstream schools are still engaged in transmission-based pedagogy which is driven by memory or recall-based assessment system. Ironically, a number of education policies that were announced with lofty claims failed to achieve their targets because of a lack of political will, low spending on education, inconsistent policies, and a lack of monitoring and accountability systems. Quaid-i-Azam had stated in clear terms: “the future of our state will and must accordingly depend upon the type of education we give to our children and the way in which we bring them up as future citizens of Pakistan”. We have already entered the 21st century, which is a century of cut-throat competition.

We need to ask a legitimate question.

Are we preparing our students for the educational framework of the 21st century that revolves around artificial intelligence, creativity, critical thinking, communication, and adaptability?

The answer to this question is not in affirmation. Today, as we remember the founder of our country, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, it is imperative to recall his vision of education, the kind of education which is contemporary in nature and is linked with our history and culture. The realisation of this dream depends on some major, urgent and consistent actions at the state level without wasting further time.

- The writer is an educationist and can be reached at shahidksiddiqui@gmail.com