Noor Ahmed brought with himself four children of Bagri community, a scheduled caste community, to get them admitted in sixth standard in a school in Larkana. The principal of the school asked him to persuade any of the five class teachers of the sixth standard in the school to accept the certificates of the Bagri students. None of the teachers agreed to enrol the children in their class.
In another event, I saw a teacher telling a Hindu student not to drink water in the glass which was used by the Muslim students. Such is the condition of the students belonging to religious minorities not only in the specific area mentioned, but also in most other parts of the country.
The Muslim proportion in the overall population of Pakistan is 96.28 percent, while the remaining is constituted by religious minorities, which basically includes Hindus, Christians and Sikhs, who are unevenly distributed across Pakistan, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
Generally in any society religious minorities are not completely accepted worldwide, which impedes them in performing their religious rituals and obligations freely. These minorities face the problem of social inequality and injustice. As compared to mainstream groups, they have less employment and fewer economic opportunities. Though there are many routines and forms in which the people belonging to minority groups are given inequality and maltreatment, the worst kind of discrimination is in any educational setting.
Education is a basic right of every child, no matter to which ethnic or religious group he or she belongs, and it should be provided without any discrimination or bias. The constitution of Pakistan also upholds this universal principle. It is a matter of misfortune that in Pakistan students belonging to minority groups are subjected to discrimination in schools due to their faith.
A report titled “Education and Inequality: Discerning the Foundation of Citizenry”, which reported on a survey jointly conducted by The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and The Institute of Development Research and Corresponding Capabilities (IDRAC) in 2019, found an alarming level of discrimination in schools on the basis of faith or religion. The report showed that around 60 percent of non-Muslim students experience or feel that they are discriminated against and disrespected. Similarly, 72 percent of parents reported that their children were discriminated against in educational institutions on account of their faith. Even the teachers belonging to minority groups are not on the safe side as 70 percent of them said they faced discrimination on account of their faith.
The Punjab government’s recent data on social and economic wellbeing in the province reveal that one-third of the women belonging to religious minorities attend schools as compared to two-thirds of women of the religious majority. According to this survey conducted by the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women, women of minority groups lag behind by 28 percent as compared to the literacy rate of women belonging to the majority community in Pakistan. These figures reflect the condition of the status of religious minority groups’ education and their suffering in education institutions.
The society should be educated and made enlightened as to religious tolerance. The minority students should not be made to study such religious subjects which they don’t want to study and the government must ensure the provision of teachers to teach minority students their faith books. In short, a comprehensive set of legal, policy and administrative measures are required to prevent and eliminate religious discrimination in the education system.
The problems for them in schools, colleges or universities increase due to external factors. The Hindu minority students face trouble when any untoward incident takes place in India that is committed by the Hindus against Muslims there. Christian students become targets when the American government follows any anti-Muslim policy anywhere in the world.
One of the problems that religious minority group students face in educational institutions is the attitude of their teachers and fellow students belonging to the mainstream religious group. The parents of the minority group students remind them to remain cautious while engaging in discussion with the followers of majority religion on any sensitive religious topic. Their fear is legitimate, given whatever has been happening with minority students in educational institutions in Pakistan on issues of a trivial nature.
In classrooms, while selecting the class monitor (class representative) normally teachers avoid making the minority students as head of the class. The majority faith students mingle with minority faith students, including drinking and eating together with them, not as much as they do among themselves. Teachers are more likely to favour the Muslim students in any dispute, no matter who is right or wrong.
Such revelations appeared in a study titled “On the Same Page? Perceptions on religious content in curricula and textbooks: impact on harmony and tolerance” published by the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP). The study claimed that when a Muslim student made an insensitive comment or posed such a question about a minority religion, some teachers sided with or encouraged such students.
A syllabus biassed against minority religions is also an issue to cope with. The developers of school curricula and textbooks don’t consider all the religious groups present in society and develop such textbooks which foster a sense of prejudice as regards non-Muslims. The Sikhs and Christians complain that their religions are inadequately represented and that there is hate content in the public curriculum, which they term as religiously biased.
The “Human Rights Observer 2023” report of the Center for Social Justice (CSJ) revealed that the religious content against minorities increased in the curriculum and in textbooks during 2022. Minority students are compelled to study Islamic content in compulsory subjects like languages, history, social studies and general knowledge. This is against the spirit of the Constitution, Article 22 of which states “No person attending any educational institution shall be required to receive religious instruction, or take part in any religious ceremony, or attend religious worship, if such instruction, ceremony or worship relates to a religion other than his own.”
There is also a pressure to convert for the students of minority faith. Female students are more prone to it than male students. The fear of forced conversion, also linked with forced and early marriages, impacts minority girls’ education.
According to the report of “Human Rights Observer 2023” the number of incidents of forced conversions surged in 2021. The year saw an increase of 80 percent of such reported incidents as compared to 2020 and 50 percent as compared to 2019. Due to this phenomenon, the girls in minority groups have restricted access to schools and education
The need is to mitigate the inequality prevalent in the education system in Pakistan. For it the curriculum should be reformed to make it free of religious bias. Such content should be incorporated in textbooks which highlight the importance of minorities in the development of the country. The government should implement the international conventions and treaties, which Pakistan has signed and ratified, regarding the elimination of all kinds of intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief.
Society should be educated and made enlightened as to religious tolerance. The minority students should not be made to study such religious subjects which they don’t want to study and the government must ensure the provision of teachers to teach minority students their faith books. In short, a comprehensive set of legal, policy and administrative measures are required to prevent and eliminate religious discrimination in the education system.
