HEC, Holi and identity crises
Changing the world for future generations is one of the primary tasks of education, more so of higher education. A recent letter by the executive director (ED) of the Higher…
What endangers a language?
Students of the Institute of Management Sciences, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) organized a two-day literary and academic event called Peshawar Literary Festival on February 4 and 5, soon after the January…
Language Day
LAST Monday was International Mother Language Day. In Pakistan some seminars were held but they had no impact on the national discourse. Few in this country consider language a significant…
Language myths
A MAJOR debate on education has been sparked by an announcement from Islamabad that a uniform curriculum for the country — from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Karachi — will be introduced.…
The metaphor of cricket
Nowhere does any sport adequately reflect a nation’s reality than the game of cricket does in the case of Pakistan. As soon as Pakistan’s skipper Sarfraz Ahmad took the last…
The revolt against elitism
In 1999, in my book The Economy of an Elitist State, I attempted to substantiate the argument that the Pakistani economy had been captured by a narrow elite consisting of…
Language myths
Last week Karachi hosted the Teachers’ Literature Festival — an innovative experiment — to introduce an alternative discourse in education. Here a lively session on language in learning was held.…
Education & manifestos
It is heartening to note that the election manifestos of three of the main political parties — the PPP, the PML-N and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf — not only mention education…
Whose language is it anyway?
Recently, a person from the village that one of the writers of this piece comes from approached him about applying to the Prime Minister’s Youth Skill Development Program (PMYSDP). This…
Promoting mother languages
The Indus Cultural Forum (ICF) has been organizing the Pakistan Mother Languages Literature (PMLL) Festival in Islamabad for the last eight years. It coincides with the International Mother Language Day…
