A school located in Karachi’s North Nazimabad neighbourhood is in hot waters after its alleged role in the insult of a student, simply for ‘speaking Urdu’.
The incident reportedly took place at Civilizations School in the city’s posh locality, with the video doing rounds on the social media.
In the 40-second clip, the boy’s father said his face was blackened with ink and other students there were asked to laugh at it.
He further said that he intended to discontinue the child’s education at the school in order to protect his dignity.
‘Teacher sacked’
Meanwhile, a representative of the school clarified that the teacher involved in making fun of the student has been sacked and has no further association with the institute.
Sibtain Naqvi, a board member of the school, said the individual act doesn’t represent the philosophy or ideology of the school.
He highlighted that the institute adheres special attention to teaching Urdu, and organises debates, plays, and poetry competitions to nurture the cause.
According to a detailed analysis, one of the motivations for the adoption of the Single National Curriculum in the country’s federating units is to help bridge class difference across different streams in the education sector, but questions remain about classroom-based discriminations and inequalities.
How can we embed uniformity in the young minds studying in the same classroom and help them in developing a similar level of understanding in their academics? How can teachers help mitigate such disproportionality?
It highlighted that educationists and learning centers from both the public and private sectors have been propagating the student-centric learning model for decades, but only a few from the private sector have so far succeeded in embodying it in its true spirit.
Ever since the educational systems of Finland, Singapore, and Britain have made inroads in the Pakistani educational stream, our schools have been utilizing the names of these learning models primarily as marketing tools, to maximize their enrolments; however, in times of practice, these learning centers fail to abide by their earlier-made commitments and opt for traditional teaching practices such as selective study, rote learning, unempathetic teaching styles, uniform lesson plans – to name a few.
It is an established fact that children too experience mental disturbance because of their family problems and when they are in school, their social or behavioral fixations not only impede their comprehension abilities but also inhibit their overall cognitive development.
Article 25A of the Constitution of Pakistan requires school educators to focus on internalizing all types of students and let them feel equally important. The teachers, in this regard, need to establish an empathetic relationship with their pupils especially, with the socially-fixed ones and engage them in some interesting and entertaining activities before starting their formal lessons.
*TW* A school in North Nazimabad, Karachi is coming under fire for insulting a student by rubbing black ink on his face and having students gather around him to laugh just for speaking in Urdu. The father shared a video of his son's harrowing and distressing ordeal#viral pic.twitter.com/snsrq2FKHe
— Naylasays (@NaylaAmir) January 30, 2023
