Exploring the Secular-religious Dichotomy in the Educational System of Pakistan

Abstract

Debate on secular and religious education is very common in Pakistan. This dialogue has been an academic concern for all of those working in the field of sociology of education across the boundaries. This study mainly focuses to explore how and when the discourse of secular and religious education emerged in Pakistan. Besides, this investigation additionally means to uncover the significant explanations for this partition of training into mainstream and strict. Exploring the discourse of secular-religious education in Pakistan, this study uses the research philosophy of interpretivism which guides qualitative methodology. Using judgmental sampling technique, a sample of 60 respondents (comprises of 30 school/college/university teachers and 30 madrassa teachers/alims) was selected for data collection. Interview guide was used as tool of data collection for in depth interviews with the respondents from across the KP province. The key theoretical insights come for this study from post colonialism to explore the question: how and why the secular-religious discourse of education emerged and what are the major causes of this discourse. The study findings suggest that ideological differences, misunderstanding of modern education, political differentiation among Muslim scholars, and lack of interest to understand secular education have given birth to the secular-religious discourse of education in Pakistan.