DefinePK

Abstract

Pakistan has a long history of unsuccessful education policies, and unproductiveknowledge system. Many factors are attributed to this failure, including sociocultural,political and economic barriers to improve our education system. However, little effort ismade to understand the historical factors that may be more contributive to contextualizethe learning and education right from the ancient times in the sub-continent. This paper isan endeavor to figure out how education was institutionalized in the subcontinent inancient times; what was the purpose of education; what kind of education was availablefor Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims; what happened to education and learning whenBritishers occupied this region; how Anglo-Saxon institutionalization replaced thetraditional, indigenous, culturally embedded and vernacular mode of learning to impose amore ritualistic, than realistic, education system. By thoroughly reviewing the precolonialand colonial education system, the paper, by employing the archaeology of knowledge,concludes that the dismal state of knowledge production in Pakistan cannot be understoodunless we dig deeper in the history to unravel the political forces, which disrupted theindigenousness.