Educational Stratification and Nation Building Process in Pakistan

Abstract Pakistan has celebrated seven decades of independence but misfortunately the nation is still divided into several ideologies, believes, ethnicities, regionalism, provincialism, political and social classes. Throughout the world, education plays a significant role in nation building but the terrible upshot in Pakistan is the division of nation in the field of education and learning. There are numerous umbrellas under which our educational system is running. Therefore, current study objects to measure educational stratification and its effect on nation building process in Pakistan. In this regard, this research mainly focuses on four major prevailing educational systems such as; privately managed schools, public schools, army public schools and madarsa (religious educational institution). Data were collected through focus group discussions and analyzed by applying grounded approach theory. Four major themes emerged after data examination. These are uniformity of curricular, equal opportunities, political and bureaucratic involvement and lack of moral education. Study finds that education system is badly lacking in uniform ideology and moral learning. Furthermore, the poor system of education is negatively affecting nation building in Pakistan by enhancing public distrust, discrimination and regionalism. The results of the present study may be helpful in finding the way for uniform educational system which provide learning opportunities to every child without thinking of their caste, religion, language, economic class, political affiliation and ethnicity.

Epidemiology of Principal Viral Respirtaory Pathogens in Pakistani Children and Molecular Characterization of Influenza A/H3n2 and Respiratory Syncytial Viruses

21 ABSTRACTBSTRACTBSTRACTBSTRACTBSTRACTBSTRACTBSTRACT Acute respiratory infections (ARI) are associated with high morbidity and mortality rates at the global level. Approximately 20% of the deaths attributable to pneumonia globally occur in Pakistan with nearly one half the infections among children younger than 5 years of age. The objectives of this study were to define the molecular epidemiology of respiratory viruses in Pakistani children and to identify viral genotypes causing respiratory infections. In this study, we analyzed 1941 respiratory samples collected over three winter seasons and tested for common respiratory pathogens using real time PCR. We found 76% prevalence rate for viral pathogens with Influenza and RSV predominant among 0.01-6 and 12-24 months age groups respectively. Fever and cough were identified as significant clinical parameters along with malnutrition and maternal breastfeeding. Furthermore, phylogenetic analysis of representative Influenza A/H3N2 viruses showed that recent viruses belonged to subgroup 3C.3 and carried important amino acid substitutions in the H3 hemagglutinin, while no substitutions attributable to neuraminidase resistance were detected. We genotyped the Respiratory Syncytial viruses subtypes and analyzed the two surface glycoproteins G and F of over100 isolates. All RSV-A strains carried 297 amino acids long G protein and clustered in the NA1/GA2 genotype. We also reported a novel RSV B genotype BA-13 and two other genotype variants (BA-9 and BA-10). We analysed the fusion protein F in RSV A isolates at the binding sites for the monoclonal antibodies Palivizumab and Motavizumab specifically and found that the N276S substitution in over 90% of RSVA and all RSVB viruses. This work highlights the need for respiratory disease surveillance as it will support the development of appropriate public health surveillance programs to inform health planning.