Peace education for sustainable tomorrow: A deeper look at the primary classrooms

• In Event: Global case studies of peace education

Proposal

Pakistan is a country of heterogeneous culture. The people here belong to various ethnic, religious and racial groups. For the last few years, the significant deterioration of tolerance and peace situation in Pakistan is alarming. The incident of terrorist attack on Army Public School on December 16, 2014, an aftermath of the involvement of Pakistan in global war on terrorism, shook the world. The 2017 Global Peace Index report indicated that Pakistan is the twelfth least peaceful country in the world and its rank is 152 out of 163 countries. The reasons behind the prevalent situation of insecurity in Pakistan might range from internal structural incongruities to the role of international power politics (Firdous, 2009) but for an educationist, the only lens to approach this problem is education for peace building. The same is aptly stated in the preface to the UNESCO Constitution: "Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed"(UNESCO, 2005). For this, not only peace research should have a place in teaching institutions but the findings should also be brought to educational institutions too (Galtung, 2008). However, it is widely acknowledged that peace education is not only needed as a ‘conflict transformative’ approach in conflict and post conflict societies but as a part of international education agenda to envision peaceful generations in future.
The 2030 agenda for sustainable development necessitates the promotion of a culture of peace to envision peaceful generations in future. Schooling, recognized as a given good in general, may perpetuate violence and vice versa. The researchers believe and literature supports that peace education is, therefore, a prerequisite as the change brought this way would be self-generated and long-lasting. It is, however, important to look at the practices of teachers regarding peace education as their basic competences are considered as one of the determinants of change. A study was, hence, conducted to explore the prevailing practices of primary teachers particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with regard to teaching of peace content existing in the curriculum.
Methodology
The framework of the research design constituted two stages. At the first stage, basic set of information was generated through the analysis of responses obtained through questionnaire. The next stage was the observation of lessons in classrooms separately in a boys’ primary school and in a girls’ primary school. Observation was a secondary tool of data collection to confirm and further add to information yielded by the questionnaire. Considering the nature of the research, interpretive analysis was conducted at both the stages.
Population and sample
The target population included all the primary school teachers teaching in the public schools in the 25 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. There are 70876 primary school teachers, including 44869 male teachers and 26007 female teachers, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (District EMIS 2015-16). L.R. Gay (1996) states that ‘…. beyond a certain point (N=5,000) the population size is almost irrelevant and a sample size of 400 will be adequate’ (p.125). Accordingly, 400 primary school teachers, including, 253 male and 147 female teachers were selected using proportionate stratified random sampling technique.
Instrument of the study
Questionnaire
The questionnaire included two open ended questions. To ensure validity, the views of experts
from UNESCO, Curriculum Wing (Abbottabad) and faculty members (Education) were sought for and the questionnaire was refined accordingly.
Observation
Observation renders the firsthand description of the phenomenon being studied and yields its holistic interpretation when used together with interviews and document analysis (Merriam, 2009). After the analysis of data obtained through questionnaires, observation helped to further gain an insight into the teaching practices of grade v teachers thereby confirming the training needs identified in the questionnaires too. Here, the technique of ethnographic observation was used which included pre and post conversation with the teachers. The rationale behind the choice to yield an essence of ethnographic observation was to understand how all evaluations within the two educational settings make sense when enunciated together.
Trustworthiness: During the months of May and June, I visited the district thrice and stayed for a week each time so that everyone at the school could get accustomed to my presence around and assured to spend adequate time to conduct observations until saturation level was reached at thereby ensuring the persistent observation as mentioned by Lincoln and Guba (1985). To avoid or limit participants’ reactivity like Hawthorne effect, I did not inform them about my observation day schedule. Further, in order to ensure the trustworthiness of the field notes, I requested teacher participants to check them following one of the nine generally cited validity procedures in the qualitative research mentioned by Creswell and Miller (2000). However, member checking was conducted towards the end of observations.
Conclusion
There is no substitute for exhaustive preparation to develop skills and attitudes of peace in pupils.
This paper aims to illustrate that, besides persistent efforts to include peace themes in the curriculum in compliance with the article 4 of the UN Resolution 53/423, the success of education for peacebuilding largely depends upon the expertise of teachers to teach peace. The authors seek to highlight the professional development inadequacies that arise when teaching peace. The findings call for the sensitization of the teachers regarding the integration of peace themes into the text books. It has to be acknowledged that explicitly designed training programmes on peace education focus the inclusion of the concepts of peace and peace education, relevant teaching-learning strategies, co-curricular activities and use of available instructional materials to help teachers implement peace themes effectively as envisioned in the planned curriculum. In conclusion, consistent hands-on in-service training of primary school teachers is crucial. Teaching peace themes effectively, indubitably, is a challenging task. However, one element which teachers can definitely and successfully control is the quality of instruction. Being peace educators, they owe it to school children to make the most of it.

Authors

• Mehreen Ashraf, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, Pakistan

• Afshan Huma, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, Pakistan