Hate material in Pakistani schools need to be tackled

Hate material still exists in Pakistani school textbooks and they need to be removed from the country’s education system, Catholic Church officials told a conference in Karachi, March 30.

“The first priority of the education system should be teaching students about humanity, moral and ethical values,” said Father Saleh Diego, director for the Justice and Peace Commission in Karachi Archdiocese.

He was addressing church and social workers at the conference organized by the Pakistan Catholic bishops’ National Commission for Justice and Peace and the Pakistan Institute of Labor Education and Research.

“Inculcating hatred among innocent children will lead us to massive disasters in future. We have to discourage such discriminatory material in our textbooks that creates division among children belonging to different religions, castes, ethnics, tribes and cultures,” said Father Diego.

Kashif Aslam, program coordinator for the commission, said researchers reviewed 70 textbooks, which are used in 74 percent of Pakistan’s schools. Among them, he said, were textbooks that included hate content against other religious beliefs and nationalities.

Authorities in Punjab and Sindh provinces have corrected some of these books, Aslam said.

However, he pointed out that in Khyber Paktun Khwa and Baluchistan provinces there has been no progress in reducing hate content in school texts. “This has been due to political compromises,” Aslam told the conference.

Aslam said one textbook used in Baluchistan said: “Muslims are superior than the people of all other nations.” He gave another examples of a social studies book that said: “Hindu India poses a danger to Islam” and a history book that stated “British rulers of the sub-continent considered Muslims as their real enemies because they took over the rule from Muslims.”

Read more at UCA News.