Tales Told by God: Stylistic Peculiarities of Qrua’nic Narratives.

Abstract The religious seminaries (Madaris) 1 of Pakistan have been a hot topic of discussion in the national and international media. These Madaris are reminiscent of the ancient education system of Islam. They attracted people’s attention during the last two decades and especially after the 11th September 2001 incident of New York. Another aspect of interest was their role in the Islamic insurgence (Jihad) waged in various parts of the world particularly in Afghanistan and Kashmir. These institutions impart orthodox education based on centuries old syllabus called Dars-i Nizami. The administrators are disinclined to any slight change in the contents of the syllabus thus bringing them to an open conflict with the modem education system and western culture. The Madaris have been divided on the basis of religious sects i. e. Shia, Sunni and Ahl-i-Hadith. Of them Sunnis are further splintered into many sub-sects such as Deobandis, Brelvis, etc. But their adherence to the primitive education, Jihad and abhorrence for the western civilization is almost the same. Despite repeated reference to these Madaris, there are many misconceptions or disinformation about them In the present paper, an attempt has been made to remove these misconceptions and present a true picture. Besides, historical perspective, vital statistics, curricula and problems and prospects have discussed in the paper in hand

Relationship of Institutional and Social Factors With Adolescents’ Socialization and Attitude Towards Learning

This study was designed to explore the relationship of the institutional and social factors with adolescents’ socialization and attitude towards learning. It further aimed to highlight the impact of demographic variations such as adolescents’ age, gender, academic achievement, parents’ qualification and socio–economic status of the family on their socialization and attitude towards learning. The objectives also included to discover which of the factors influence students’ socialization and attitude towards learning more; institutional or social. For measurement of the perception of adolescents, teachers and parents about the adolescents’ socialization and attitude towards learning three indigenous inventories were developed separately, each having four subscales. Teachers’ role, discipline, hidden curriculum, peer relationship were the subscales of the variable institutional factors. The variable social factors have four subscales such as, relationship with parents, home environment, media impact and community influence. For the variable socialization the four subscales were positivity, confidence, self-respect, organized. For the variable attitude towards learning the four subscales were responsibility, behavior, diligence and decision making. The sample was comprised of 300 students; 200 teachers and 200 parents taken from the population. The data was analyzed through various statistics on SPSS. Results revealed that there was a remarkable difference in the perception of adolescents, teachers and parents regarding the impact of various institutional and social factors on adolescents’ socialization and attitude towards learning. Adolescents whose parents were highly qualified were better in their socialization. It was also concluded that when the adolescents were asked to compare their relationship with the teachers and with the peers they answered that peer have a stronger impact on their attitude towards learning rather than teachers. It is recommended to bridge the communication gap between the adolescents and their adults. Supportive and caring relationship with the teachers’ help adolescents build the attitude towards learning and would promote academic achievement. Teachers may learn to deal with the variations in the nature of adolescents that vary from individual to individual which is also commonly known as the individual differences. Parents may build a friendly relationship with their children based on trust, peace and harmony.