Institutionalization of Education in Pakistan in Context of its Origin in Subcontinent: An Overview of Buddism, Hindu, Muslim and British Contributions

Abstract

Pakistan has a long history of unsuccessful education policies, and unproductive
knowledge system. Many factors are attributed to this failure, including sociocultural,
political and economic barriers to improve our education system. However, little effort is
made to understand the historical factors that may be more contributive to contextualize
the learning and education right from the ancient times in the sub-continent. This paper is
an endeavor to figure out how education was institutionalized in the subcontinent in
ancient times; what was the purpose of education; what kind of education was available
for Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims; what happened to education and learning when
Britishers occupied this region; how Anglo-Saxon institutionalization replaced the
traditional, indigenous, culturally embedded and vernacular mode of learning to impose a
more ritualistic, than realistic, education system. By thoroughly reviewing the precolonial
and colonial education system, the paper, by employing the archaeology of knowledge,
concludes that the dismal state of knowledge production in Pakistan cannot be understood
unless we dig deeper in the history to unravel the political forces, which disrupted the
indigenousness.