Language
Education in Pakistan is carried out in two languages, Urdu and English. While Urdu is the national language of Pakistan, the language was originally and initially developed in Uttar Pradesh in neighboring India. The language was chosen as the national language by the Founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah and has no relation to the belief that it was brought to Pakistan during the Partition of India by migrants called Muhajir Urdu. Urdu quickly dominated the Pakistani political landscape and Urdu is mandatory in all schools and educational institutions as part of a strategy to undermine the indigenous languages and cultures of the region (some of them being Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Brahui). Education in Pakistan was severely affected by the language bias. According to a 2010 British Council report, this forced imposition of Urdu on non-Urdu speakers in Pakistani schools and universities has resulted in the systematic degradation and decline of many of Pakistan's indigenous cultures, is partly responsible for a rise in reactionary rebellions against this ethnocracy (such as Sindhi nationalism, Baloch insurgency etc.), and contributes to discontent and political instability in the country. The report also cites rising illiteracy rates in Pakistan among the indigenous and attributes it to the forced imposition of Urdu in schools, leading to non-Urdu speakers, feeling threatened by the neglect of their languages in Pakistani education, becoming increasingly reluctant to enroll in these schools.
Read more about this topic: Education In Pakistan
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was inseparable from the development of language in which words were not mere signals, but signifiers of something other than themselves. Yet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“There is ... in every child a painstaking teacher, so skilful that he obtains identical results in all children in all parts of the world. The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!”
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952)
“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)