The recent UNESCO report and Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) once again brought to the fore the plight and criminal neglect of education in Pakistan. Much has been written and said on this topic in recent days. Unfortunately, most of the writers and speakers repeated the same old mantra: we need to educate our children. None of the experts made any effort to go a little deeper and discuss the kind of education that needs to be imparted to our younger generation in order to make them responsible and educated members of a modern democracy. There are no two opinions on the need for education to survive in the modern world and that a good education is the best gift a society can bequeath to posterity, but we also need to realise that the wrong kind of education can do more harm than good. The social and physical edifices of modern society stand upon the foundations of education. Uneven and weak foundations make a bad base and this is what we have in Pakistan: a society that is uneven and fragile, which can be attributed to the ignorance and indoctrination that we spread in the name of education. Education in its classic sense is a means to character building and furthering the cause of civilisation. Everyone seems to agree on this, so what is the problem? The issue that needs to be addressed concerns the fundamental meaning of the term ‘education’. Is just teaching our children skills sufficient to read, write and become cogs in the ever-expanding industrial behemoth of this capitalistic world enough? Or is their more to it than that? To find an answer to this rather confounding question we will have to delve deeper and go back to the basics and redefine terms like ‘education’, ‘civilisation’ and ‘character’. The meaning of these terms has broadened with the passage of time. In today’s world, education is not only a conduit to pass on society’s collective will, knowledge and values to posterity but is also a means to equip young people with the necessary tools and skills to live in a society founded on the principles of democracy, tolerance and equality for all. In a more practical and physical sense, education should not only train the younger generation to face and tackle the situations and challenges of a technological and ever-changing world but also prepare them to live in a civilised world that is at peace with itself. In other words, the youth of a society should not only have a firm grasp on the values that their society as an entity believes in but should also be taught to respect and tolerate the values and beliefs of other societies and communities. This leads to yet another question: what can education do to create a just, tolerant and democratic society? To achieve the goal of ‘education’ in its most modern and academic sense, societies have to devise and create curricula and syllabi that encourage critical thinking, and inspire a scientific approach based on objectivity towards issues and problems in everyday life. Members of an educated and enlightened society should have the mental capacity and intellectual courage to question everything. Syllabi that make students think critically and objectively are harbingers of success and happiness in a society. Education, which supports and emphasises scientific thinking, ultimately creates a populace that is not a blind follower of whatever they are told, and cannot be sacrificed on the altar of fake national ego and the political interests of certain groups and individuals. An educated and academically robust citizenry is a great asset for any state. This kind of population is a must for a thriving economy, vibrant democracy and stable society. Education — not indoctrination based on falsification of history, distortion of culture and demonisation of others — is the only way to achieve prosperity and respect in the comity of nations for Pakistan. If the leaders and the rulers are interested, which they do not seem to be, in the nurturing of a democratic and educated society then they really need to address the root cause of the problem, which is ignorance and the uneducated illiterates that we produce through our present educational system. The first step in the right direction will be changing the curricula and syllabi and making them more thought provoking and objective. This will require a lot of courage, planning and guts on the part of the leadership but is the only way left for us to move forward. Yes, this will not solve all our problems overnight but it will be the first step in the right direction; this small step will be a giant leap for our educational system. The writer is a linguist and sociopolitical analyst