Empowering Muslim Youth Through Developing Argumentation Skills

The progress of nations lies in the hands of educated youth. Presently, our Muslims youth are facing numerous challenges. This include western propaganda against Islam as a threat to peace, moral degradation, lacking spirit of inquiry, internet addiction, blind following of western norms and cultures and various kinds of social problems such as violence, gambling and pornography. Our Muslim youth is wandering in identity crises and have forgotten the true spirit of Islam and the achievements of our forefathers. Majority of youth are copying and adopting the western style of life and cultural involvement. One reason for this may be the education system that we have inherited from the colonial masters. This is also replicated by electronic media and the Western propaganda against Islam that we don’t take pride to be staunch Muslims otherwise; we will be blamed as extremists. Our education system has also failed in instilling the spirit of inquiry, critical thinking and moral judgment in our youth. In order to develop the potential of our youth to reform our society and not to be led by baseless beliefs, the role of teaching is very important. With this goal in mind, the students should be empowered through argumentation skills. This requires teaching students through argumentation method by involving/guiding students to make a claim then write justification for their claim and finally counter argument to support their claim. The essence of argumentation is not new as the Holy Qur’ān repeatedly stressed the believers to use their intellect, to critically observe their surroundings and avoid baseless information. Practice with argumentation will help in developing critical skills in our youth and in making informed decisions. They would not blindly follow western norms and would be able to answer western propaganda through solid arguments and valid justifications.

Exploring Grade 10 Students English Reading Comprehension Performance in Gilgit City: Comparison Across Gender, School System and Parental Qualification

Comprehension is the basic purpose of reading. The present study intends to explore the English reading comprehension proficiency of grade 10 students of Gilgit city specifically in terms of comparisons across gender, school system and parental qualification. The reading comprehension test developed by Arellano (2013) was adapted for the study in order to measure students’ level of comprehension. The test consisted of twenty-six items followed by four domains of reading comprehension – getting general information, getting specific information, understanding textual structure and deducing meaning from context. The overall reliability of the tool was 0.88. The test was administered to a stratified random sample of 181 secondary school students enrolled for the academic year of 2014 to 2015. The selected sample consisted of male (n=103) and female (n=78) students from private (n=4) and public (n=4) schools, respectively. Inferential analysis was carried out to determine the statistical level of difference between the groups and the hypothesis was tested at the 0.05 level of significance. On the whole, students’ level of attainment in the comprehension test was (M= 26.10%). Moreover, the study found (both on overall English reading comprehension as well as at subscale level) a significant level of difference across gender, school system and parental qualification. Girls, private school students and children of educated parents performed relatively better in English reading comprehension than each of their counterparts, respectively.