Critical Study of Moral Teachings of Islam and Buddhism for Promotion of Global Peace

All ancient and contemporary religions of the world like Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Jainism and Islam emphasizes and attempts to uphold the highest moral and ethical values in human society in order to produce discipline and good will. Some of the religions strictly command for proper observance and submission to the laws and cannons", whereas the other religions do not stipulate strict allegiance to its principals, yet they nourish and treat human emotions and direct them for the general good of the society. On the whole, all religions aim at moral and ethical uplift of human beings, to install positivity in them and imbues the spirit of sacrifice, equality, affection, brotherhood and justice in mankind. Thus, these all facts testify that all religions, with some differences of pattern, propagate the message of love, Peace, equality, brotherhood, justice, Harmony and equity in the material age and greed-ridden epoch where individual profits and benefit overwhelm collective cause and general welfare of mankind. What we have done here in this paper is not to establish that one religion is better than the other but to demonstrate that almost all world religions stand for love, peace and harmony. There is no doubt, that all religions preach and advocate positive harmony among human beings but the message of Holy Prophet (SAW) is the only example who gave practical aspect of these theories. However, this paper elaborates this reality by a detailed comparison of Islam and Buddhism.

An Appraisal of Illiteracy Reduction Plans and Designing a Low Cost Model to Improve Literacy Rate in Pakistan

Government of Pakistan has launched various illiteracy reduction plans from time to time to promote literacy rate in the country but these plans could not achieve the targets. This study was designed to appraise these illiteracy reduction plans and to design a low cost model to improve literacy rate in Pakistan. The main objectives of the study were: to appraise the illiteracy reduction plans introduced in Pakistan, from time to time, to identify the needs and problems of the direct affectees (all the illiterates above the age of 10 years), to know the ground realities regarding implementation of illiteracy reduction plans/projects at Government and NGOs level and to design a low cost model to improve the literacy rate in Pakistan. The population of the study was comprised of Educationists i.e. Ph.D. degree holders in Education, Executives working in the top level management in policy formation, plan designing, project development and program development, Executives working in National Planning Commission, Provincial Secretary, Additional Secretary, Deputy Secretary and EDOs (Education and literacy), Literacy teachers, Heads of different NGOs, Community representatives and Direct beneficiaries (the brick makers, manual workers, laborers, peasants etc). Snowball sampling technique was used to find the most relevant persons (respondents) for different illiteracy reduction programmes in different areas for the conduct of this research study. viA mixed-method research design was used i.e. data was quantitative and qualitative. For quantitative data a questionnaire was developed at five point rating scale ranging from ‘1’ indicating strongly disagree to ‘5’ indicating strongly agree; a selection of ‘3’ indicating uncertain/don’t know. For qualitative data some open ended questions were included in the questionnaire. An interview schedule was also developed for Head of NGOs, community representatives and direct beneficiaries. Data collection was started from the person who had been involved for long with the illiteracy eradication programmes. On his identification the other respondent was selected. Overall 1200 questionnaires were sent to the respondents but 998 questionnaires were got back. In this way, data was collected from 1348 (998 questionnaires and 350 interviews) respondents. Main findings of the study showed that need assessment was not carried out before launching illiteracy reduction programs, objectives of the illiteracy reduction programmes were not relevant to the literacy needs of the participants, local community was not involved in the running the literacy centers, religious leaders, intellectuals and retired personnel were not invited to support the illiteracy eradication programmes, and political instability in the country was a hurdle in the achievement of the targets of the illiteracy eradication programmes. In the light of the findings of the study, a low cost model was designed to improve the literacy rate in Pakistan. The proposed model was presented to 10 experts in the discipline of education for its validation. The model was improved in the light of experts’ opinion. They were satisfied that this low cost model will be useful for increasing the literacy rate in Pakistan.