Harmony and Peace Education in Pakistan: Focus on Pctb Textbooks of History and Pakistan Studies

Textbooks produce specific minds so are believed the best way to promote peace and harmony in a society. Policymakers draw ideological lines for specific goals and educate the coming generations through the contents of the textbooks. Whatever agenda a nation has, peace and social harmony cannot be compromised so syllabi mean to promote nationalism along with integration. Although history and social studies textbooks address coexistence and tolerance but even then many writers share their reservations about some points. K K Aziz (1993) in Pakistan castigated the governments and the textbook authors on ‘distortion’ of the historical events and deleting important segments of history from the syllabi. Mariam Chughtai shared her reservation regarding the textbooks being published in Pakistan. Romila Thapar in India raised objections against the BJP government’s effort of ‘religionising the syllabi’ and tried her best to introduce non-communal approach based on social harmony in the textbooks while writing history books but her effort remained a mere desire because the ‘religiously’ extremist political party occupying the main corridor of the national government and having no compatibility with her ideas refused to accept the undisputed historical facts. Dr. Mubarak Ali opined while writing on the textbooks that ‘defective textbooks create a defective mindset. Ideology limits people from acquiring new knowledge in order to understand the fast changing world’ (Dawn, April 16, 2016). ‘National History’ reflects national point of view to produce a generation who represents some specific land, culture, religion, political ideology, art and social ethics. Children are taught to grow with their own culture, religion and social norms. This study finds that syllabus of the subjects of History and Pakistan Studies produced by the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) aims at educating the ‘national interpretation of history along with respect for other religious groups’ to the posterity therefore no gaps seem in the textbooks of History and Pakistan Studies. Criticism arises mostly on the old textbooks while the PCTB had revised the textbooks massively and all the historical periods including Indus Valley Civilization, ancient India, Sikh rule, etc. Are being taught at the school and college level. The ‘history textbook’ is not a ‘history’ rather it offers interpretation of the historical events. This article further pinpoints some issues such as communal interpretations in the British India, space in the textbooks, administrative, social, political and religious narrations, and the undeniable position on nationalism and patriotism which cannot be overlooked. The textbooks are playing their role in promoting social harmony and this policy has resulted in a coexistence, tolerance and peace in the society.

Uncertainty, Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth: Evidence from Developing Asia

Voluminous work has been produced on transnational investments-led growth through technology transfers and imitation yet the empirics remain inconclusive. We consider regional differentials in absorption capacity and capacity to imitate as major factors underlying mixed results across the empirical literature about Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and economic growth nexus. This work, broadly argues that the impact of FDI on growth depends on its interaction with human capital and domestic investment. This study also proposes that transnational investments are prone to uncertainty and that the estimated relationship is sensitive to proxies and measures used for uncertainty. In this backdrop, this study envisages examining the role of FDI in economic growth of Developing Asia over a time span of 1980-2007. To put the arguments to an empirically testable framework, building on endogenous growth theory, a model for growth is derived based on Romer (1991) and developed by Borensztein et al. (1998) which we extend from a single equation to a Simultaneous Equation Model (SEM) to deal with potential simultaneity across the variables. Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) is employed to control for endogeniety of the dependent variables. This study finds a strong positive interaction between FDI and human capital that suggest that the benefits of FDI are conditional on the absorption capacity of recipients. Also a strong and robust net crowding out effect of FDI is shown. FDI and domestic investment do not demonstrate a significant interactive effect on economic growth. Lower levels of human capital coupled with net crowding out of the domestic investment serves to compromise the effects of FDI on growth for the region. Furthermore, physical capital is found to be a significant determinant of FDI inflows and economic growth. Malthusian theory that over population dissuades economic growth in the region is supported. The FDI-Uncertainty relationship varies across the alternative measures used for uncertainty. The standard deviation of the real effective exchange rate is inversely related to FDI. In contrast, uncertainty measures generated through GARCH drives FDI inflows to the region indicating different response to Risk vs. Uncertainty. Regime durability is found paying a positive premium to growth. This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, it is the first study that we are aware of that analyzes the FDI-Uncertainty-Growth linkages for developing Asia. Secondly, the analyses are conducted using simultaneous framework that captures feedback between FDI, domestic investment and economic growth. This work also controls for simultaneity and endogeniety bias by employing Instrumental Variable (IV) estimation technique in SEM framework. Also our work contributes to empirical literature on uncertainty and FDI and uncertainty and economic growth by employing alternative measures of uncertainty which help better understand the nexus in context of risk vs. uncertainty hypothesis. Additionally, this work provides plausible reasons behind mixed results in previous work that has looked at FDI-growth linkages. Based on the findings, on the whole, we recommend formulating policies to produce efficient human capital through scientific education and creating market driven skills. Well devised population policy not only hinging on slowing down the population growth rates but also a better management of human capital should be devised. Most importantly, FDI inflows should be directed to selective sectors and areas where it can make complementarities with domestic capital. Physical infrastructure should be improved both in quality and quantity.