You are only as strong as your weakest link. This common adage is now the cornerstone of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s education ethos. It has designed an equity strategy to ensure students with disabilities get a shot at a well-rounded education. The philosophy behind the equity strategy doesn’t simply provide students services and infrastructure but actually defines […]
Are teachers learning what they must teach?
Teachers are not born. They are made through years of education that must involve academic and professional preparation. Their professional development should result in equipping them with a blend of content knowledge and pedagogical skills. Teaching skills also need to evolve to be able to respond to a fast transforming world. As the schools and […]
APS still haunts us
When terrorists stormed into the Army Public School (APS) last year on December 16, 2014 and murdered 144 of Pakistan’s young children, one of them a little girl, we felt its reverberations in every aspect of our lives. The state awakened from is slumber and was forced to turn towards the menace of extremism that […]
Reham and public space s
Imran Khan has never has let a chance pass to flaunt religion, which he conveniently wore on his sleeve: the multiple prayer breaks from the dharna (sit-in) stage, the excessive call for religion in politics, the statement about the Taliban being our brothers, the same Taliban that stand to wipe out women’s rights and girl […]
On coping with terrorism, but justly
No other country is a better case study for society facing chronic terrorism and suicide attacks than Israel. And the study of Israeli society in the second intifada reveals that there was a counterintuitive trend: society did not become increasingly traumatised when terrorist attacks and thwarted plots regularly dominated news headlines; instead people became accustomed […]
The state and sociopaths
In 1878, the US passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, also known as the Third Force Act, to authorise President Ulysses S Grant to declare martial law, impose penalties against terrorist organisations and use military force to suppress the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The name of the Ku Klux Klan was derived from the Greek […]
Imran Khan: why Im a believer
There are a few reasons I have converted to becoming an Imran Khan supporter, as opposed to choosing to not exercise my vote. Before this my main contention with him was that he spoke of the Taliban as if they were a negotiating party and not a group of people believing in an exclusivist ideology […]
This night-bitten dawn
This year’s Pakistan Independence Day should be dedicated to the remembrance of Salmaan Taseer, whose broad daylight murder separated those who understand the founding father’s vision for the country from those who do not. His murder, tragic though it was, restored Pakistan’s dwindling dignity — someone was willing to die for the principled cause of […]
Asiya Nasir wakes Pakistan up
The moment has come. Someone has articulately taken on the government’s appeasement policy towards terrorists. Someone has finally said that there has been enough blood drawn over the persecution of minorities in Pakistan. That someone is a woman. That someone is a Christian. The founder of Pakistan, when campaigning for equal rights for Muslims in […]
Salmaan Taseers martyrdom
The execution of the governor of Punjab in the capital has caused riot among the masses. The ruling party is upset, so are his opponents but there are also those who are gladdened. Vocal in their online comments on social media like YouTube, they say he deserved it for calling the blasphemy law a black […]