Daily Times

Sir: Our elementary education system is deteriorating progressively. It is deplorable that we teach our children to hate India in our textbooks. India is our neighbour. Harbouring bad feelings for it will affect us at the end of the day in the form of more wars and regional tensions. I had a chance to talk to one of the directors of the textbook board about the content in history books regarding India. He gave the usual reply that the books have been written by experts. Here we are being told that an expert is immune to making mistakes and if he or she considers that India is an enemy and liable to be hated, then so be it. Could there be anything worse than such erroneous thinking? Now the responsibility falls on parents to correct the wrong being done by the government at the expense of purging the sense of goodwill and peace towards our neighbours in our children. On the flip side, more than 60 percent of government schools do not have electricity and access to clean drinking water. On top of it all, corporal punishment makes children disinterested in school, with the result that parents opt for madrassas. Therefore there is a lot to be done to overcome hate mongering.

Haris Saeed

Lahore