| In Pakistan, everyone teaches, and yet no one learns. Can one support that contention with a statistic? Admittedly not, for the obvious reason that a nation that does not know the size of its own population can hardly be in a position to determine the extent of its own ignorance. |
| The Government traditionally uses the ability to sign one’s own name as a measure of literacy. The public uses another measure. It gauges the level of literacy in the country from the uncouth behaviour of its elected representatives in the National and Provincial Assemblies, all of whom are supposed to be university graduates. And by that yardstick, there are some members of the public who feel that such inept legislators should be punished for being elected under false pretences, and their former teachers arrested for inflicting permanent damage to public property. [EXTRACT] |
Published in DAWN, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006) |
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