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Pakistan to raise a 'people's army'

As the Pak army retreats from the Kargil mountains in India, the Pakistani government is proposing to raise a 'people's army' by imparting mandatory military training in educational institutions.

''The government intends to promote military training in educational institutions to raise a civilian force to strengthen the country's defence,'' Parliamentary Secretary for Education Chaudhry Mohammad Ashraf told the National Assembly this week.

Pakistan, with just 38 per cent adult literacy, is among the most illiterate countries in the world. Education has suffered here from under investment, failure to implement plans and a lack of political will and purpose.

Officials in the Ministry of Education said the plan was in its preliminary stages and would take a lot of planning and preparation before it could be implemented.

They said most of the planning would be done by the military itself regarding the skills that would be imparted to the school and college-going youth.

Already, high school students (Grade 11 and 12) are offered the option of military training that includes assembling and firing G-3 combat rifles. The successful 40-day training spread over two years of high school earns students 20 marks that are added to their final aggregate. Most students go through the tough drill and parade exercise only to get the extra marks.

''This idea of military training is not new. We are just expanding its scope. We are considering making it mandatory from Grade 8 onwards,'' said an Education Ministry official requesting anonymity.

''Both boys and girls will be given this training, but for girls it would be optional,'' the official said, adding that private schools would also come under the plan's perview.

According to the preliminary plans as announced by the parliamentary secretary, the training would be conducted by retired military officials. However, he could not say how much money would be set aside for this programme.

Some Urdu language newspapers have reported that the government was planning to include materials in the curriculum that would encourage students to join armed forces after finishing matriculation or high school. However, the curriculum wing of the Education Ministry was unaware of such changes.

Since the plan is still at the policy-making stage, principals and teachers of various government and private schools expressed their ignorance about it, though most of them had read about it in the newspapers.

''What we need most is more funds for improving the quality of education at all levels. Military training will only consume whatever resources we have for education in the country,'' said Naila Aziz, a teacher at a private school in Islamabad.

The government was criticised by the vice chancellor of an engineering university in Karachi for starving education of funds again in its annual budget presented last month. Defence spending has remained above 5 per cent of the GNP in the nineties.

The Islami Jamiat Tuleba, a student organisation affiliated to Jamaat-i-Islami, had also lambasted the government's apathy, saying the slight increase in the annual budget would be negated by the devaluation of the Pakistani currency.

The Kargil Crisis

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