Pakistan urged to hold transparent education consultation
Rights groups, academics call for a process that encourages feedback from a wide range of people
Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood speaks at President House on Dec. 23 on women s education and the way forward. (Photo: Twitter)
A group of minority rights organizations, academics and educational institutions have delivered a letter to Pakistan’s Education Ministry seeking transparent, inclusive and historically informed consultation about the country’s new education policy.
The letter, addressed to Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood on Jan. 18, was written by the Working Group for Inclusive Education and endorsed by representatives of Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, the Centre for Social Justice, Pakistan Minorities Teachers Association, Lahore Diocesan Board of Education, Church of Pakistan, The Salvation Army Pakistan and St. Patrick’s College, Karachi.
Clothes make the man and woman at Pakistani university
Strict dress code for students stirs up debate over personal freedom
Hazara University Dhodial in Mansehra of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. (Photo supplied)
The new dress code at a university in northern Pakistan has drawn a mixed reaction from Catholic educationists.
Hazara University Dhodial in Mansehra in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province issued a notification on Jan. 9 that bans T-shirts, short shirts, heavy make-up, jewellery, sleeveless
shalwar kameez (traditional tunics with pleated trousers) and heavy handbags for females while on the campus.
The dress code also imposes restrictions on “cut-off jeans, skin-fitted jeans, long hair, ponytails and unpresentable beard cuts” for male students.
The burning Hindu temples of Pakistan
Mob attack on shrine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa marks the funeral of religious harmony in Pakistan
A mob attacks the shrine of Shri Paramhans Ji Maharaj in Teri village of Karak district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Dec. 30. (Photo supplied)
The ashes of a police motorcycle lay buried in the rubble of a security post at a century-old shrine following a mob attack in Pakistan. Melted ceiling fans hung lifeless inside the charred ruins that once housed the grave of a Hindu mystic.
Police are occupying the compound after the Dec. 30 attack by the 1,000-strong mob at Teri, a hill settlement deep in Karak district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The crowd gathered after a local mosque made appeals to stop Hindus from extending the temple.