Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the recent sexual harassment and assault of a woman Tiktoker at the Minar-e-Pakistan was “shameful” and it caused him great pain. He said such incidents were the result of children not being raised in the proper way.

The premier said the increase in sex crimes in Pakistan was the result of exposure to adult content made available through smartphones.

“One of the reasons for the disaster we see here is that we children are not being raised in a proper manner. These [act] are neither part of our culture nor religious. The acts that are happening…. the sex crime that is on the rise in Pakistan…that negative side of the mobile phone.. the things they see on mobile phones, in human history children were never exposed to such content.”

“When I was growing up I couldn’t even imagine something like this happening,” he said, speaking at the Punjab Education Convention 2021 in Lahore on Wednesday.

He said it was very important to raise and educate children on the lines of the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as it would help fight the rising concern of sex crimes.

‘English not a status symbol’

The prime minister, while praising Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and Education Minister Dr Murad Raas for their work for improvements in the education sector, said the ability to speak English should not be seen as a status symbol.

“Not a certain class, but everyone should have access to learning English because it is important for higher education, but it is not a status symbol,” the premier said.

He said since the inception of Pakistan, no ruling party had made education its priority and therefore the system introduced by the British Raj in the subcontinent was still in place.

The system was meant to “create a certain class which looks Indian but thinks like the British and can be used by them to rule over the masses,” the PM said referring to Macaulay’s remarks in the British parliament.

“When I visited England for the first time, I realised that, through my education, I’ve been made an English public school boy, not a Pakistani,” said PM Imran. “I was distanced from my culture and also my religion.”

He said Pakistan should have fixed its education system immediately after gaining independence adding that a single national curriculum was key to building a “nation”.

“We spread apart in three directions: madarsas, Urdu medium schools, and English medium school for a very small class,” he said. The English medium schools he said, were less aimed at education and more was focused on creating “desi-wilayatis”.

“What sells in the world is an original thought. When we become mental slaves of a foreign culture, we can be good slaves but we can’t do something significant.”

The premier said half a century ago Pakistan’s government
schools were doing well but after that the system started to deteriorate.

“The private school system did benefit from that fall but it
made us succumb to mental slavery of a foreign culture.”

The Single National Curriculum, he said, would yield fruit with time, but “at one point all of us will realise how big this step was.”

Single National Curriculum

PM Imran launched the Single National Curriculum last week.

“This was my vision for last 25 years that one day in Pakistan we will have a single core curriculum for the whole country,” he had said while addressing the SNC launch ceremony in Islamabad last week.

Punjab will begin implementing the SNC from the educational
year 2021-2022.

A notification by the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board,
issued last week, read that the new curriculum will be taught to classes I to
V.

“SNC for grades Pre I – V and Model Textbooks of Education
Reforms and Textbook Development Wing, Schools Education Department developed
by the Federal Government for implementation in all streams of education
(Public, Private and Deeni Madaris) in Punjab for the forthcoming academic
session 2021-22 and onwards.”

The decision was approved by Punjab CM Buzdar in
December during a meeting of the provincial cabinet. According to the
government, the system will help eliminate the rote learning system and hone
the skills of the students.