Category Archives: Children and Youth

Language matters

March 24, 2023Children and Youth, Education, LanguageZubeida Mustafa

By Zubeida Mustafa

A STORY that went viral recently was of a little boy whose teacher marked his face with a black dot. The other children were then asked to shame him. Where did the child go wrong? He had spoken in Urdu in a supposedly English-medium school. It was shocking and I felt the pain the child must have felt when he was so humiliated. This was no less than a cardinal sin that was committed against the child, against our national language and against all those children who were made to participate in this hate game.

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Modern slavery?

January 27, 2023Children and Youth, Foreign Policy of Pakistan, Human Rights, WomenZubeida Mustafa

By Zubeida Mustafa

ON April 16, 2022, a teenager in Karachi stepped out of her home early in the morning to throw garbage in the public bin nearby. She never returned home that day. According to reports based on court and police proceedings, she was abducted by a young man and his companions from Lahore. A horrible experience awaited her.

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‘Baji, let it be’

December 16, 2022Children and Youth, Human Rights, Justice, Law & Order, WomenZubeida Mustafa

By Zubeida Mustafa

PAKISTAN is regressing; the extent of its decline can be measured by the treatment meted out to its women. What happened at Mujahid Colony in Karachi not too long ago has set new standards of ‘beastliness’ on the part of state functionaries in subduing women. The confrontation between women and the police took place when the authorities, having decided to widen a road in North Nazimabad, sent demolition teams to clear so-called encroachments. I will not go into the legalities of the issue as controversy surrounds it.

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A beautiful mind

December 2, 2022Children and Youth, EducationZubeida Mustafa

By Zubeida Mustafa

POETS have mourned their unsung heroes. We have our own celebrated poet Mirza Ghalib saying,

(“Not all manifest themselves as lilies and roses/ What faces must lie buried in the dust.”)

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Society stratified

November 18, 2022Children and Youth, Education, Justice, Social IssuesZubeida Mustafa

By Zubeida Mustafa

UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report, launched recently, points to a basic flaw in the education systems of South Asia. It is the inequity that the fast-growing private sector in education has spawned. The GEM report does not say it in so many words but the fact is that inequity is stratifying society itself.

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Liberal arts taboo

October 21, 2022Children and Youth, Education, Social IssuesZubeida Mustafa

By Zubeida Mustafa

PROF Alexander Key was spot on when he suggested in his talk at a private university in Karachi that students should be offered more options in the field of liberal arts to teach them to think in multiple ways about the world.

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Calamity & schools

October 16, 2022Children and Youth, Education, General, Natural DisastersZubeida Mustafa

by Zubeida Mustafa

THE magnitude of the flood calamity notwithstanding, there is hope on the horizon. The flood has exposed the farce of education in rural Sindh. Now we also know it is a myth created by the authorities that parents do not want to send their children to school.

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Special children

October 16, 2022Children and Youth, General, Health, Human RightsZubeida Mustafa

by Zubeida Mustafa

HATS off to all special children and their parents. I hold them in great admiration, the first for their patience in facing their challenges uncomplainingly, and the second for giving unconditional love and care to their special offspring, seeking absolutely nothing in return.

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Why de-school?

August 26, 2022Books, Children and Youth, Education, GeneralZubeida Mustafa

By Zubeida Mustafa

WILL Ali Akbar Hashmi’s hard-hitting speech in the National Assembly on Independence Day cause our parliamentarians to rethink education in Pakistan? Hashmi is a student who shed light on the plight of out-of-school children living in poverty.

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History lessons

July 29, 2022Children and Youth, Education, Foreign Policy of Pakistan, War and PeaceZubeida Mustafa

By Zubeida Mustafa

“DO not follow in the footprints of your elders. Create your own footprints,” is what Dr Mubarak Ali would exhort his students when he began his academic career as a lecturer of history at the Sindh University (Hyderabad) in 1963.

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