Open Letters

Power, force and insight
…I am really impressed with the quality of the magazine; the layout, the themes, design, and, of course, and most especially the content. This is a magazine with power, force, and insight behind it – with a noble purpose. It is really quite something. It will make a strong impact for justice, I am sure of that!
Dr. Peter McLaren, University of California, USA

Outstanding job
…Once again, it looks great. You people are really doing an outstanding job. Congratulations to real cultural workers.
Henry Giroux, Penn State University, USA

Challenging norms and taboos
The tragedy of education in Pakistan is that it comes very low on the priority order of the decision makers. A large number of initiatives focus on the quantitative expansion. Be it the number of schools or number of ‘trained teachers’. There is least attention given to the qualitative aspect of education. Aren’t we just producing students to fill out the empty slots of society and become ‘good citizens’? What we need to strive for is an educational system that focuses on emancipating our students by thinking critically. We need to produce students who should not just fit into the slots of society but who could challenge some of its norms and taboos. I am glad EDucate! is focusing on this important function of education.
Dr. Shahid Siddiqui, Islamabad, Pakistan

Good learning experience
We have great value and respect for the efforts and endeavors the Sindh Education Foundation is engaged in. The experiences and achievements of the Foundation serve as a good learning experience for the development professionals.
Liaquat Thaheem

Feeling at home
I am a teachar at Bahria College, Karsaz. I find EDucate! very informative and it makes one feel at home since the experiences of the writers are of our own context.
Shahina, Karachi

Compete with the Times - No!
I must confess now that the Renaissance is on in Pakistan. I was very impressed with the physical outlook of the magazine and also the website is quite remarkable, although it needs to get an edge, but hopefully with the passage of time its going to compete with ‘The Times’ and I am looking forward to that.
Raja Adnan Razzaq, Rawalpindi

Inspires fresh thinking
Thanks for sending me EDucate! Pakistan’s First Magazine on Education and Development. I am impressed with the contents and the titles inspire fresh thinking. It gives the reader confidence to know that others also think as rational individuals in a conservative society.
Dr. Khalid Aftab, Principal, Govt. College, Lahore

Source of liberation
Congratulations for initiating the thought-provoking magazine EDucate! This time it is more eye opening as it problamatises the role of media with profound intellectual rationale. The dialogue of the contemporary media critics on the prevailing role of media is opening new windows of thinking in the existing epoch of fragmentation and dogmatism. It needs to decentralize the lessons of the contemporary dissents at community level, so that a sustainable change could be posed in the spectrum of the prevailing global realities.
May EDucate! becomes a source of liberation for the restless majority from the prosperous few.
Barkat Shah Kakar, IDSP-Pakistan, Quetta

Reflections from a Reader
EDucate! is a wonderful magazine that allows incisive insights into education and development issues. After reading the four issues I have some first impressions.

1. I agree that a radical approach to solving education problems is required. We need an overhaul of the system, to turn around this specialty producer of brown sahibs and clerks designed to churn out a cadre of locals, ill-equipped to question, analyze, and rise, just trained to serve the British raj in its administration of the Colony. The overhauling is not just about better public management and policy. It’s a very tricky political process, which should empower the proverbial PTV ‘common man’ (that is atleast the intention of education reform) and disinherit the feudal power structure among other power-wielders. The contribution of your magazine and website is to generate an awareness about the need for radical overhaul. My humble suggestion: the target audience is probably aware of this need for reform (though not of how to question the curriculum) but to reach a critical mass of awareness you have to reach the non-English reading audience. The fact that the magazine is in English limits its proliferation. Perhaps an Urdu version of the magazine carrying translations of a summary of Iqbal’s ‘Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’ or Ali Shariati or Syed Qutb’s ideas would be a better mechanism. An English collection of radical essays are important to convert a few of the Anglicized graduates from KGS or St. Patrick’s (that’s a generalization but for effect). But what we need is critical mass and that would come largely from a segment that doesn’t read English.
2. Unfortunately, I am a realist and crave for specific issues. Yes, the magazine has debates on ‘overarching paradigms’ on what ‘education should do’ but I haven’t read a piece that outlines a problem in schooling in Pakistan AND suggests a solution to overcome it. Perhaps policy / solution oriented debates on more specific issues would be a greater contribution.

3. I am particularly delighted to see pieces on Iqbal and a remembrance of Shariati. It indicates that there is some emphasis by your team on drawing on the pool of ideas that philosophers in Islam have accumulated in their quest to reform Muslim societies. I hope to see greater emphasis on learning from models based on our societies and religion than on transplanting Western paradigms of education.
As a policy analyst concerned about education reform in Pakistan, I applaud your effort to highlight the critical significance of education on development. My concern is that an emphasis on progressive slogans/critiques of education may inhibit your ability to bring change due to opposition from the Establishment. What is required is a delicate balance between quiet practical change/reform and a loud dissemination of ideas. It’s a tricky balance, but that’s the fun part!!

Hope my comments are taken as a positive, constructive contribution to the process.
Regards,
Mohammed Rehan Malik, RGS Doctoral Fellow, RAND Graduate School, USA.