[Dawn] The primary and secondary schools curricula (being taught to children in public and private schools in Punjab and Sindh) is replete with content that can fan hatred, prejudices, torture, extremism and religious intolerance in society.The curricula 'hate material' is mostly targeted at religious minorities including Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and the neighbouring country, India. There is also a lot of material that has the potential to turn innocent minds against the Englishmen.
Despite hectic and repeated efforts by human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
organizations and impartial educationists aimed at pointing out negativity being promoted through textbooks, especially for the last three decades, the latest textbooks have more hate content than those written previously.
A content analysis report (of the books published by Punjab and Sindh textbook boards) prepared by the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), entitled "Education or Fanning Hate" says the hate content has increased manifold with the passage of time. Many textbooks that had no hate material in their earlier versions, now carry such material both in Punjab and Sindh.
Educationists believe that now the issue of religious intolerance should be discussed openly and that must lead to some action to save younger students from such influences at the outset.The content analysis report on Punjab textbooks states that there were 45 lines containing hate material in the books published in 2009-11, which rose to 122 lines in 2012. Urdu and Pakistain Studies' textbooks for Class-VII, VIII, IX and X were found to be the "most-affected" as the hate material swelled from 15 lines to 86 lines this year. In all, 22 lessons in the current primary and secondary schools curricula have hate content.
According to the report, the 2009 textbooks for Class-IX and X Urdu (grammar and composition), Class-IX Pakistain Studies textbook, Class-VI History book and Class-VIII social studies had no hate content but the latest versions of these textbooks have three, three, one and four lessons, respectively, that contain such material. The Class-VIII Urdu textbook had also one such lesson, but in the new book the number has risen to three.