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Hizb ut Tahrir / Wilayah Pakistan has issued a Publicized Policy Position (PPP) regarding the ineffective and inadequate education in Pakistan. It outlines how the Khilafah will restore the Ummah to its former position of being the global leader in knowledge and research, through implementation of Hizb ut Tahrir’s Constitution for the Khilafah.
A. PREAMBLE: Education in Pakistan is inadequate and corrupted, causing misery and preventing progress.
Since the creation of Pakistan, education has been woefully neglected and corrupted, leading to tens of millions our sons and daughters being deprived of an education that Islam has mandated as a right for them. A British colonialist education has divided empirical sciences from Islamic education to form two separate institutions, main stream schools and madrassas. This has continued to be implemented in almost the same format, without consideration of Islam’s viewpoint on this matter. In Islam there is no detachment of religion from life, unlike Western civilization. Islam is the basis for all of our actions and viewpoints upon life. However, the current education seeks to produce on the one hand “worldly” people, who do not hold Islam as a world view, and on the other, a clergy that was not able to apply Islam to practical life. This dichotomy has led to a decline in our thinking, the adoption of western concepts, the development of western sentiments, the loss of competent ulema, intellectuals and sincere politicians. And that is why people cry that there is a “vacuum in leadership.” The current education policy aims to keep Islam out practical life and make it an academic subject, whereas Islam mandates the development of dynamic, sincere and aware Islamic personalities. Thus the Khilafah cultures people by Islam in a manner that they are able to apply Islam in their political as well as individual lives. And they know the purpose of their life in this world is to worship Allah (swt), rather than divorcing Islam from political life. This ensures that the sons and daughters of the Ummah look to their Deen to provide solutions to the problems the Ummah faces, economically, politically, internally and externally. It is this that allowed an Islamic civilization that was a beacon of light for over a millennium. The state produced brilliant sons and daughters, pioneers and leading authorities in fields as diverse as mathematics and medicine, jurisprudence and astronomy. Arabic language, the official language of the Khilafah, became the mark of the educated men and women of the world. And the cities of the Khilafah were the favored destination for education of the European elite.
In addition, the current system propagates incorrect teaching methods, a focus on abstract rote learning, rather than conceptual development, by linking thoughts to feelings in a way that matters are vividly clear. It is this which has led to a departure from rational thinking which was the hall-mark of Islamic civilization for centuries. Furthermore, there is a scarcity of proper facilities in schools, with neither professional nor qualified teachers available. In many schools, major subjects are studied in a language that is not the first language of the students. Pakistan in 2012 was ranked 113th among 120 countries for literacy. The failures of government policy and funding have led to a boom in the private sector education, with even private universities becoming common, thus increasing the financial burden on parents. Moreover, the majority of parents feel the need to employ a tutor or send their children to a tuition academy thus multiplying the time, effort and cost of education. Due to these deficiencies most capable students desire to travel to the West for university education. As a consequence, Pakistan and other Muslim countries lose valuable talented youth from serving the Muslim Ummah in a “brain drain.” And there is no reason for them to return to Pakistan for they acquire an education that is beyond what industry and agriculture can benefit from here, as the government has failed to link research to industrial and agricultural needs.
B. POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS: Education in Pakistan has been a tool of colonialist policy for separating the Muslims from their Islamic Aqeedah, Islamic heritage and hindering revival and progress.
B1. Colonialist policy was to implement an education policy consisting of curricula that has the objective of severing the link of the Muslims with their Aqeedah, by promoting the concepts of secularism, liberalism, democracy, man as a sovereign legislator and other western ideological concepts. Its foundations were laid by the British during their occupation and today it is closely supervised by America, Europe and colonialist institutions such as the World Bank. Thus the textbooks developed by the government and those used by private schools, are specifically designed for Pakistan, but written by Western academics. They have an agenda to create an image of Islam as a religion only. They reinforce corrupt concepts of Western intellectuals, philosophers and scientists and promote a love for Western literature and way of life. The aim is to produce secular personalities that refer to the Western ideology of capitalism and man-made law.
B2. In the current Madrassa system, Islam is taught in a theoretical manner and no link is established to reality. The syllabus in the Madrassa has over the years been downsized to contain Islamic rulings related to Ibadah and Akhlaq only, with some mention of inheritance, Nikah and Talaq. Other Ahkam related to muamalat, economic transactions, foreign affairs and matters related to ruling and accountability have been neglected.
B3. Government funding is not adequate to ensure the availability of resources, facilities and competent trained teachers for producing research, technology and progress.
C. LEGAL INJUCTIONS: Developing education according to the Islamic Aqeedah.
C1. The Islamic state will take the responsibility of educating the sons and daughters of the Ummah. It will have the prime objective of establishing an education policy that will develop Islamic personalities with a strong Aqliyah and Nafsiyah. Thus it will develop the curriculum in such a way as to produce thinking skills, analytical thinking and a desire in the student to study knowledge for the sake of gaining reward and pleasing Allah (swt) as well as making meaningful contributions to society. In its Introduction to the Constitution, Hizb ut Tahrir has adopted in Article 170, “The Islamic Aqeedah is made the basis for the education curriculum, so it is made the criterion for adopting information from the angle of confirming it as true and believing in it, and not simply from the angle that it is simply information”.
C2. Empirical sciences will be emphasized in every level of education with the objective of producing new research, development and technology, so that the Khilafah leads the world in industrial innovation, health, architecture and other practical demands of human existence. Science and technology will be linked to the practical need and drive for it, such as industry, agriculture and health-care. This is what will ensure that the doctors, scientists and engineers that the Ummah already possesses are put to best use. It is this marriage of capable sons and daughters with a grand purpose that will produce an explosion in creativity and productivity, propelling the Khilafah as a leading power. As for cultural sciences, they are taught at the primary and secondary levels according to a specific policy which does not contradict Islamic thoughts and rules. In higher education, these cultural sciences are studied like other sciences, provided they do not lead to a departure from the education policy and its goal. In its Introduction to the Constitution, Hizb ut Tahrir has adopted in Article 174 regarding the cultural sciences, “Since learning what causes a deviation and weakness in the beliefs easily influences children, it is therefore prohibited to teach anything of these types of knowledge in the primary and secondary stages of education”.
C3. An equal amount of time will be dedicated to Arabic and the Islamic sciences so that the children will be grounded in the fundamental tenets of the Deen and apply Islam practically. The Islamic culture will be taught at all levels of education. Our most brilliant sons and daughters will be encouraged to become jurists in order that the understanding of Islam in practical life is in the best hands. In its Introduction to the Constitution, Hizb ut Tahrir has adopted in Article 173 that, “The goal of teaching all of this knowledge in the school stage is to build the Islamic personality of the student, and to prepare him to enter into the realm of practical life, or to prepare him to continue higher studies in order to create distinguished personalities, which are necessary to raise the intellectual and scientific level of the Ummah, and to prepare it to lead the world to take all the people from the darkness of disbelief to the light of Islam, and from the oppression of man-made law to the justice of the Shari’ah law”. In Article 175 Hizb ut Tahrir states, “The evidence for the article is the action of the Messenger (saw), since he (saw) used to teach the rules of Islam to men, women, the elderly and the youth, which indicates that Islam teaches every generation, and so it is learnt at all levels of education”.
C4. The Khilafah state will provide facilities for schools and training programs for teachers to increase subject knowledge, as well as acquire rational teaching methods to facilitate learning. Education will be offered from primary level to higher education and an emphasis will be given to research. For educational funding, the Khilafah will restructure revenue generation according to the Shariah rules to accelerate educational progress. It will generate huge revenues from public properties such as energy and state enterprises such as large scale construction and manufacture of machinery. It will establish Zakah on industry and Kharaaj on agriculture and end the oppressive income and sales tax that has strangled economic activity. It will also refuse to pay the interest based loans from the colonialists and others, which eat a third of the expenses of Pakistan as debt-servicing, in the knowledge that the loans have been paid many times over due to interest. And if this were not enough to fulfill its obligations, it will seek emergency wealth taxation, only from those who can meet their basic needs and some luxuries as well. The Khilafah will raise the Ummah again as a beacon for knowledge as it was for centuries. In its Introduction to the Constitution, Hizb ut Tahrir has adopted in Article 179 “whatever is necessary to accomplish a duty is in itself a duty”. Libraries, laboratories and the rest of the means of developing knowledge are part of the affairs of the Ummah which the Imam must govern, and if he falls short he is accounted over it”.
D. POLICY: Education that the Ummah deserves.
D1. Education at primary and secondary levels will be provided free of cost to every child, male and female. Where possible, the Khilafah State will endeavour to provide free or low cost education at university level.
D2. There will be no distinction and separation of schools and Madrassas. All educational institutes will carry the same objective and the same curriculum. Private schools can be established if they are in accordance with the adopted curriculum.
D3. The curriculum will promote the values of Islam only and will not include any concept that will deviate the Muslims from the true understanding of their Deen.
D4. Teacher training will be instituted to allow teachers to develop the correct teaching methods in order to impart rational thinking, develop creativity and achieve the objective of the education system which is to develop Islamic personalities.
D5. Funding will be made available to increase facilities such as libraries, laboratories and research centres. Students will be given incentives to stay in the Muslim lands and contribute to the revival and progress of the Muslim Ummah.
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