SHANGLA: Participants in a seminar here on Saturday demanded of the government to include the Indus Kohistani and Shina languages in the curriculum of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa text books, also demanded to make the closed girls schools functional.
A seminar was arranged by Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT) in the district council hall Komila in Upper Kohistan under the title of “Negotiating Pluralism”.
Stakeholders, social activists, religious clerics and educationists from various parts of Upper, Lower and Kolai Pallas Kohistan participated in the seminar.
Zubair Torwali, organiser of the seminar said that the seminar objective was to push the local stakeholders of Kohistan to work for the revival of their ethnicity, diversity, culture, and language.
He said, Chitral, Dir, Swat and Indus Kohistan are backward regions of the country where local residents faced numerous of problems.
“The basic reason behind the extinction of regional languages was the absence of written version of them. They local stakeholders, social activists have to play their due role for the revival of indigenous culture, ethnicity, diversity and education also for harmony in the Indus Kohistan,” Mr Torwali, added.
Junaid Ur Rehman, a social activist, said that lack of social harmony, lack of public interest, and local traditional politics has kept them away from the progress and modern technology to avail.
“Although Kohistan has now bifurcated into three districts and its locals spoke different Kohistani languages but still we are the same, with same culture and ethnicity,” He said.
Shams Ur Rehman, an activist, urged the Kohistani people to adopt social communication and the potential of positive competition among themselves.
Masood Ali, a local stakeholder, said that Kohistan is comprising of two parts, both are located opposite to each other across the Indus river.
He said, the girls education literacy rate is below the 3 percent in the district because some influential figures are opposing it by terming girl education as sin.
He said, the government had failed to form regional language authority in the province and it is also one of the reasons for not being included the Kohistani languages in the curriculum.
Asad Khan, a youth leader, stressed on the parents particularly local stakeholders, that they should provide opportunities to youth especially the educated class, so that they could lead them and work for the betterment of Kohistan and promotion of their local languages, cultural and ethnic harmony.
Mulana Karim Dad, said that they did not forbid anyone from getting education, however wanted to gather all the Kohistanis stakeholders at a same page and work for the promotion of education, languages, cultural diversity.
Malak Muhammad Ghani, on the occasion claimed that there are hundreds of girls schools in the districts in the occupation of local influential and their people are employs as class-iv in that schools but reluctant to perform duty.
He claimed that the closed schools are being used by influential for keeping their livestock in them.
The seminar participants on the occasion unanimously passed a resolution demanding of the government to include Kohistani two major languages in the curriculum and also make the ghost schools of the region functional.
