Students taught social harmony

Islamabad : Students of different backgrounds often carry strong biases against each other. To overcome them, and help produce social harmony, students should be given opportunity to interact with each other, not only academically but also in non-curricular activities. Above all, they should be taught how to talk to each other, rather than talking at each other.

These were some of the findings of the engagement of 150 university and Madrassah students from Multan, in a series of five youth camps, organised by Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), an Islamabad-based think tank. The camp, consisting of learning workshops and day-long study tour, was designed to enable students of Madrassah and university, shed their mutually-held misperceptions and stereotypes about each other. During the interactions, students admitted that the two have different conceptions of the world around them. Most striking was the fact that students did not interact much even within the same group.