Link between education and political reform Thursday, 09 December 2010 02:02

Lakhdar Brahimi, former Algerian foreign minister and veteran UN envoy, in his address at the WISE Summit regretted that some Muslims were justifying the Church attacks in Iraq and he attributed it to lack of education. He rightly said that literacy is not education and that every thinking person was worried about the education system in the Arab world. He appealed to everyone to condemn the attack.

He cited examples of countries like China, South Korea and, especially India, which he said learned the craft of weaving from Egypt was now one of the leading high-tech states, thanks to education. We, however, find these examples not very relevant to the subject of inadequacies in Arab eduction.

We have a different view: we believe if political reforms do not keep pace with progress in education, extremism and sectarianism will grow.

As to attacks on churches in Iraq — violence, extremism and terrorism are not found only in Arab states, they are as much a reality in countries Brahimi mentioned in his speech. And a majority of Al Qaeda elements are highly educated.

Yes, we believe education is of paramount importance for the development of a nation. All over the world, education reinforces politics, economy and culture to make a strong society. People equipped with information and technology decide the future of nations and find solutions to social problems.

We find that strong link between education and political systems missing in the Arab states. Those developing educational programmes for creating a well-educated generation need to keep that link in mind. Political reforms just cannot be ignored.

The problem arises when you have a highly educated population but a stagnant political system – where people do not have many freedoms.

That creates a highly educated class lacking in values and social consciousness. They find solace in consumerism and accumulating wealth or turn to extreme ideologies. This is the challenge facing the Arab world.

If governments in the Arab world do not do something to change the political system in their countries, we will just be putting off a major problem for it to take an explosive form in future. A gap already exists — we have those steeped in consumerist attitudes and those who become extremists.

In order to see real change, we need to fix important parameters — we need to evaluate and clarify our values and our identity. We should not just go on experimenting with new educational systems imported from the West.

The system of education in the West is compatible with their political system where students are encouraged to share ideas and opinions and people have the democratic right to free speech.

But in the Middle East, our political system does not fit in with the system of education that we want to bring in from the West. The extremely slow pace of  political reforms that is not keeping pace with educational development might create a generation that will turn to extreme Islamic ideology in the future.

We will have to create a well-educated and socially-conscious generation to avert internal conflict.

THE PENINSULA