Constructing the resilient citizen: A case of education policies and the fight against extremism in Pakistan

• In Event: Educational approaches to preventing violent extremism

Proposal

Building resilience amongst students is a common aim of PVE-E policies at the global and national level. This is evident in UNESCO’s approach to preventing violent extremism through education, where resilience is promoted through critical thinking equipping students with the necessary skills needed to challenge extremist ideologies. Yet, in conceptualizing resilience from this global ideal to a national context, the meaning of the term may change according to the particularities of the local context. This presentation unpacks this highly complex term ‘resilience’ that has become central to the agenda of preventing violent extremism through education. It locates this term within the context of Pakistan, and the state’s attempt at preventing violent extremism through a national narrative that aims to build resilience amongst its citizens. This concept in such a context is intertwined with a strong sense of patriotism to the ideal of an Islamic Republic of Pakistan, where resilience is built against the enemies within and those outside who challenge the integrity and Sovereignty of the nation-state. When the concept of resilience moves into the fold of the nation state, the individual as the citizen becomes an important part of a counter terrorism strategy that aims to protect the nation state. This is evident in the language of resilience that is employed in state policies such as the National Internal Security Policy (NISP) 2018 -2023 and the National Counter Extremism Policy Guidelines (NCEPG) 2018. This is further evident when this objective of resilience is translated into curricula, and interpreted into textbooks. Undertaking a conceptual analysis of “resilience” in PVE-Education, this presentation examines how resilience is theorized at three stages: global, national, and local - how international organizations such as UNESCO conceptualizes this term at the global level; how the Pakistani state operationalizes this term in its national policies at the national level; and how this national objective is interpreted by provincial governments as evident in the example of the Punjab province in Pakistan in this study at the local level. Punjab in the Pakistani context becomes a useful case study having been at the center of major educational reforms in the past decade. In exploring how resilience is interpreted within the education system, this presentation focuses on the curriculum and textbooks for Urdu language and literature, selected because it promotes ideological narratives through its poems and stories. The Urdu textbooks for grades 5 and 8 will be taken as an example, as students in these grades prepare for the provincial level exams. In starting with the international conceptualization of ‘resilience’ by UNESCO that is informed by a Global Citizenship Education (GCED) framework, and tracing it to the local context, this presentation provides crucial insights into the limitations of such a framework when located within the confines of the nation-state, one that may be true for other contexts thereby undermining the objective of a PVE-E agenda under the GCED approach.

Author

• Tania Saeed, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)