Islamabad: The Pakistan studies lecturer is in mid-flow when his students stand and rush for the door — the students gave priority to Namaz then to take academic classes.
But this behavior of the students not appreciated by the teachers as on of the teacher, Sajjad Akhtar said that they won’t come back for at least 30 minutes and some of them even decide not to return to class.
The university grants a 15-minute break for prayers but any student is allowed to get up as soon he hears the call to prayer in what critics call a chaotic interruption of academic life.
They say increased Islamization in Pakistan’s top teaching institutes and among the growing middle classes is helping to dumb down academic standards and restrict students’ social life.
“At Quaid-i-Azam University there are four mosques, but still no bookshop,” says Pervez Hoodbhoy, a nuclear physicist and one of Pakistan’s most prominent academics who used to teach there.
Established in 1965 in the new federal capital Islamabad, it was considered a liberal campus until 1977 when controversial military ruler Zia-ul-Haq seized power.
During his 10-year rule, until his death in a plane crash in 1988, Zia embedded a conservative form of Islam into politics and affairs of state, and ushered in sharia law to run alongside the penal code.
Trade unions and student bodies were banned in educational institutions, and Arabic and Islamic studies were made mandatory for all students until university level.
Additional marks were given in exams to students who learned the Koran by heart. Over the subsequent generations, the trend has got deeper and more embedded.
“There are far fewer students today who can sing and dance, recite poetry, or who read novels than 20 years ago,” Hoodbhoy told AFP.
“The university is very much like a school for older children, where rote-learning is considered education.
“There’s no intellectual excitement, no feeling of discovery, and girls are mostly silent note-takers, you have to prod them to ask questions.”
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