South Asia Archives - IMPACT-se

Pakistan’s Textbooks

adminimpact — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Our Pakistan report presents an in-depth analysis of 86 government-approved textbooks used across Punjab, Sindh, and federal school boards, covering a range of subjects and grade levels. This comprehensive review examines how these materials address themes such as diversity, coexistence, gender equality and democracy. While some lessons do encourage tolerance and mutual respect, particularly in isolated sections, the review found that many textbooks still fall significantly short of UNESCO-based standards for promoting peace, respect, and anti-incitement. They frequently sideline non-Muslims and foster hostility towards specific groups such as Jews and Pakistan’s neighbor India. Routinely, religious content is integrated into non-religious subjects, with jihad often framed as armed struggle or defense.

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India to Combat Youth Voter Apathy Through School Textbooks

adminimpact — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

India’s National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has announced it will introduce new textbooks which include content on electoral literary, and will update existing textbooks to incorporate this material. The goal is to address voter apathy among young people, and Indians living in urban areas. These measures, which will begin in years 6–12 across all schools, are part of a Memorandum of Understanding signed a few weeks ago between the Election Commission of India and the Education Ministry. The document focuses on training teachers in electoral literary to promote voter awareness among students; creating a “Democracy Room” in secondary schools to display voter education materials; and a mechanism to issue students with voter ID cards when they turn 18. Complete Article HERE

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‘Will I Be Illiterate’? In Taliban’s Afghanistan, Girls Fight Back—Attend Secret Classes, Refuse to Disappear

adminimpact — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The underground school in suburban Kabul began in July this year, one of 50 set up by women’s rights activists, months after the Taliban regime in Afghanistan disallowed school for girls studying in classes 7 and above. In the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam, there is no sawaab in educating girls. While women have so far not been stopped from going to universities—men and women go on separate days—given the ban on schooling, there will be no new admissions. In the class of 26 are women of varying ages, including a woman in her thirties, who had to drop out of school in her fourth grade during the first Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, and her daughter, who should have started Class 8 in March this year but is now out of school—two generations of women who know first-hand what it is to have dreams cut short, what it is for women and girls to live under the Taliban’s boots. “I could never go back to school after that. I come here because it is a chance to relearn how to write and read Dari and be able to do some sums, so that I can teach my children,” says the mother. Complete Article HERE

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Mobile Schools Provide Hope for Afghan Children—Especially for Girls

adminimpact — Tue, 24 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

“Afghanistan’s education system has been devastated by more than three decades of sustained conflict. For many of the country’s children, completing primary school remains a distant dream—especially in rural areas and for girls—despite recent progress in raising enrollment.In the poorest and remote areas of the country, enrollment levels vary extensively and girls still lack equal access” (UNICEF— https://www.unicef.org/afghanistan/education). Afghan volunteers have organized a mobile educational program to tour remote areas, giving children hope after the Taliban closed schools for girls in March. An Afghan NGO, Pen Path, gives lessons and library books to children who might otherwise be starved of any opportunity to learn. Pictorial Essay Begins HERE

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New Bus Line Speeds Pakistani Women to Education, Jobs

adminimpact — Fri, 06 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Pakistani student Mah Jabeen credits a new public bus system in her home city with saving her from being stuck at her parents’ house doing chores – or even having to get married. Thanks to the Bus Rapid Transit system in the northwestern city of Peshawar, Ms. Jabeen said she had been able to continue her master’s degree—keeping alive her dreams of becoming a botanist. “My parents had decided to stop my education … because they didn’t like me traveling in the disheveled Mazda wagons,” Ms. Jabeen said, referring to the city’s privately run minibuses while sitting on a shiny BRT bus en route to college. They relented, she said, because the new bus stop was just a few minutes from her front door and dropped her off at the university gates. Launched in 2020, the BRT has proved hugely popular among women in the ultra-conservative city, where burqas and veils are standard female dress and 90 percent of women reported feeling unsafe using public transport in a 2016 survey. Complete Article HERE

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Huddled in Secret Schools, Afghan Girls Refuse to Give Up on Education

adminimpact — Sun, 06 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Behind a yellow door in an alley blanketed by snow, 25 girls sit on the floor, huddled in coats and headscarves, in front of a white board. “What are you doing?” the teacher asks in English. “I am a student!” they chant in unison. Their plastic shoes that are piled outside the door are a symbol of extraordinary courage: six months after the Taliban seized power in Kabul, crushing the dreams of women and girls by banning them from secondary education, some are fighting back. They are going to secret classes in clandestine schools. “I want to be an educated person,” says Yalda, 11, eyes shining under a scarlet scarf. “I want to be an engineer and build beautiful schools and homes in my country.” Kamila, 16, had heard stories from her mother about secret schools under the previous Taliban regime in the 1990s but never imagined she might end up in one. “I thought the world is too developed. But here we are.” She dreams of a brighter future: “I want to go to university to be an investigative lawyer, particularly helping those who can’t pay.” When the girls heard about a secret school in their area, they were overjoyed. They bravely insisted that they are not scared of being caught. “Learning is not a crime,” Fatima, 12, said… Complete Article HERE

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