write a short summary what you understand

At my first Press conference, two days after the promulgation of Martial Law, I had defined three immediate tasks that would have to be undertaken: namely, land reforms, refugee resettlement, and educational reforms. We needed an educational system which could produce competent leadership in different shapes and yet be within our means. I set up a Commission on National Education on 30 December 1958, and asked them to get on with the job. They wanted to make a basic study of the educational system and educational theory and talked in terms of years; but I told them that I wanted the report quickly. They worked hard and produced a comprehensive report within about eight months. Our foremost need was to have a large body of trained and disciplined men and women who could provide leadership and direction. To my mind, this was the hard core of our national requirements. All reforms in the sphere of land and agriculture, law and administration, and all attempts to produce a greater measure of political, constitutional, social, and economic stability and well-being were intended to provide the conditions necessary for the growth of the right type of men and women. The object of all our endeavor was the young people, at school or college today, but who tomorrow would be called upon to assume the leadership of the country in all spheres of life. When I talked about leadership, I did not for a moment accept the timeworn concept which confined it to the realm of high public offices; tome leadership meant a universal trait which operated at all levels. The mother in the nursery, the wife in the home, the teacher in some remote primary school, the doctor in a rural dispensary, the clerk in a small municipal office, the tiller of the soil, and the worker in a factory, each one of them had to be a leader in his or her own line, able to do the job adequately and constructively. What we needed was a sound and sensible system of education to liberate the talent for leadership in every sphere of national life. At the same time, I was clear in my mind that the purpose of educational reform should not be to demolish unnecessarily any good or valuable traditions built up over long years. Proud legacies and treasures of the past have to be protected, but old laurels do not stay fresh unless nurtured by an urge for new achievements. The Commission started by identifying the basic weaknesses in the educational system we had inherited from the past. These were 'passivity and non-cooperation; indiscipline and non-acceptance of public authority; placing of self before the community'; and the

disruptive forces of regionalism and provincialism'.8 The Commission reached these conclusions after making a careful study of political developments in Pakistan and analyzing the causes which had contributed to the breakdown of the whole political system. I cannot do better than reproduce the findings of the Commission: 'During the early period of foreign rule, the attitude of the government to the people was one of paternalism, while that of the people towards government was one of passive submission. . . . Initiative was seldom expected or encouraged and the relationship between the government and the people was the impersonal one between ruler and subject.'9 The Commission felt that this passive attitude had been changed into one of active resistance to government during the struggle for independence, but that after the creation of Pakistan some of the worst of the old attitudes, both passivity and suspicion of government organization, had reappeared. Having summed up the basic weaknesses of the system, the Education Commission went on to devise remedial measures. It recommended that the basic necessity was nothing less than a 'revolution in attitudes' so that the characteristics in our society which they had pointed out could 'give way to a spirit of individual initiative, personal integrity, pride in accomplishment, trust in one's fellow men', and 'a private sense of public duty'.10 The Commission formulated a plan which was aimed at raising academic standards, at encouraging the bright, and not only the rich, child, and at solving, through education, the problems of mutual ignorance and suspicion between the two wings of the country and between the peoples of different language backgrounds. The Commission recommended that the emphasis in higher education should be on quality, so that the products of our colleges and universities could compare favorably with those of overseas institutions. To achieve this, it was imperative that the quality of college and university teachers be improved. This, in turn, would depend ultimately upon our ability to recruit people of high caliber to the teaching profession, upon their dedication to teaching and scholarship, and their willingness and ability continuously to refresh their knowledge and methods through personal study and research. To improve the qualifications of teachers already in service, and as part of a permanent programme through which college teachers could bring their knowledge up to date and acquaint themselves with new and improved techniques and to stimulate their thinking, the Commission recommended that a series of summer courses be instituted to cover various academic disciplines in each course. These would be attended by university and college teachers and supervised jointly by eminent local and foreign specialists in each discipline. Fortunately, this part of the Commission's 8 R ep o rt o ftheCo m m is sio n o n N atio n al Edu catio n ,p .6(Go vern m en t o fP akis tan ,Karachi,1960). 9 Ibid.p .5. 10 Ibid.p .8.

recommendations could be implemented right away and a modest beginning was made within months of the acceptance of the Report by the government . Regarding secondary' education, the Commission pointed out that the nation-building needs required a large number of people with a variety of technical skills relating to industry, commerce, and agriculture, and that the new State required men of great integrity, patriotism, and dedication to the ideals of service. The secondary school programme in the past had paid little attention to these matters and, in fact, their tradition of aiming at a literary, or arts, education had been so strong that resistance to any change had frustrated all previous attempts at reform. The main emphasis of the secondary school programme had been on the preparation of the students for joining the universities. To correct this weakness the Commission recommended that secondary education should become a distinct stage with its own purpose, rather than act only as a preparation for higher education. As for primary education, the Commission was of the view that economic development would require for its rapid achievement a generally literate population who would be able to understand and apply the new discoveries of science and improved technical and agricultural practices, and who could, as in any democratic system, understand local and national issues and could choose wisely from among alternative candidates and courses of action. The major objective of the educational reforms really was to prepare our people for sharing the burden of developing their country and defending it. It is going to be a slow process, but I would like to believe that we have made a start in this direction. But we have had setbacks. For instance, throughout the whole of 1963, Dacca University operated for only twenty-seven days. We are spending large sums of money to bring the two Provinces to a level of parity. Unfortunately our progress has been hampered by many students wasting their time and allowing politicians to misguide them. These are heart-breaking things. I think, however, that the educational reforms are beginning to take effect and, in another two or three yean, we should be getting much better products out of our universities. As for foreign influence, I believe we should adopt good things wherever they can be found. Unfortunately, it is so much easier to adopt bad things, gaudy and vulgar. I do not have any mistrust of foreign ideas, attitudes, and manners, but I do believe that we should maintain and hold firmly to our own traditions, adopting only such foreign ideas as can be usefully assimilated in our life. Most of the newly emerging countries adopted the western system of government because they did not have time to work out a system of their own. As a result, governments have been functioning in a state of tension with their people. The behavior of the politician, the student community, and the Press, has contributed to this tension. Student demonstrations are a common phenomenon in all new democratic countries like Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the Philippines, and Japan. In the old days, one would hear a lot about lawlessness among the student community in Cairo. Since the pattern of government there has changed, the students have settled down. In new countries, such as ours, traditions of responsibility are not sufficiently developed; irresponsibility comes easy, since it so often goes unpunished. But it is also true that governments have not really been providing the facilities which the students require. There were reasons for this. We just did not have the means. There were far too many students and not enough buildings, laboratories, libraries, or even areas for games and recreation. Some of these shortages can be soon met if vigorous and perhaps unconventional methods are tried, on individual initiative. Organized physical training, for example, in our schools and colleges could take the place of more complicated and expensive games. One instructor on a platform with a loud-speaker can take a very large body of students at one time, and just half an hour a day should build up their bodies and minds, and take the devil out of them. The language problem has been a major hindrance in the development of a sound and uniform educational system in the country. The Commission advocated teaching through both the national languages, Bengali and Urdu, and referred also to the question of the two scripts but did not go into the difficulties which teaching in two languages and two scripts presents to a developing society seeking to build itself into a unified community professing a common ideology and committed to a common destiny. The language problem has to be viewed essentially as an academic and scientific problem. Unfortunately it has become a highly explosive political issue and the result is that no one wishes to talk about it for fear of being misunderstood. The intellectuals who should have been vitally interested in the matter have remained on the touch-line lacking the moral courage to face up to the problem. Their attitude has been to leave it to the political leaders to come up with some solution and face the odium so that they may be able to sit back in comfort and criticize whatever solution is offered. It is quite clear to me that with two national languages we cannot become a one-nation State; we shall continue to remain a multi-nation State. I am not necessarily arguing against this; I am just stating a fact of life which has to be recognized. For it is the case that one language cannot be imposed on the whole country; neither Bengali nor Urdu can become the language of the whole of Pakistan. It is equally true that if the people both in East and West Pakistan want to develop cohesion they must have a medium to communicate with each other. And this medium must be a national medium. To evolve such a medium we have to identify common elements in Bengali and Urdu and allow them to grow together through a common script. Admittedly it will be a long process, but with growing understanding and knowledge of each other a national medium is bound to emerge and take shape, I cannot enforce this idea. All I can do is to pose the problem and to emphasize the need for solving it if we are to preserve national identity and unity. Of all the reforms we initiated, in pursuance of the philosophy of the Revolution, the reconstruction of the system of education was the one closest to my heart. No economic planning, social progress, or spiritual enlightenment could make much headway without a sound and realistic base for education. This immense task requires the pooling of all the talent in the country and I sincerely hope that this trill be forthcoming in implementing the intentions underlying the reforms. Only then can we have an educational system which trill meet the individual and collective needs of our people. V As far back as 1954 I had written that 'there is the problem of our legal system, which is most expensive, ineffective, dilatory, tyrannical and totally unsuited to our genius. This would need complete overhaul and made humane, quick, and cheap. The answer would seem to be in having a Jirga-cum-Judicial system and revision of evidence and procedural laws with only one right of appeal. The highest judicial court for dealing with cases other than constitutional would have to be created in each sub-unit. The federal or the provincial high courts should deal only with eases of a constitutional nature.' I remember my father telling me on one occasion that after the First World War there was a demand from the people who had supported the British that they should be compensated for it. The British Government asked District authorities to explain to the people how much Britain had done in the way of introducing reforms to help the people of India. The Deputy Commissioner of Hazara, a Colonel James, called a