NO one denies that the bigots in this country outstrip by far the educated. No government since the government of the founder of the nation has acknowledged the fact that the educated have a natural ascendancy over the bigots and that therefore something has to be done to eradicate the dangerous deficit.

This past month in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the large majority of bigots have had a field day. They killed a Shia because he was a Shia. They killed ten Ahmedis because they were Ahmedis; they orphaned forty and injured thirty. The Government of Pakistan, in its powerful wisdom, has announced that the suspect is 'the hidden hand' of our traditional enemy. It goes without saying that this perennial ubiquitous 'hidden hand' has never been found and chopped off by any of our brilliant governments.

From the better educated of the educated world, we and the government should learn. A recent issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (London) carried the transcript of a lecture given by Professor Bob Fryer, Assistant Vice-Chancellor at the University of Southampton. To quote :

"I sign up completely to the government's slogan of 'education, education, education' and I admire recent iniatives. I make that clear because I want to say a few critical things. My theme is the relationship between schooling and lifelong learning, and while I believe wholheartedly in the importance of education I believe it is dangerous to assume that it can be the sole or even the most effective tool of social change. It is wrong to assume that there is a clear relationship between learning and happiness or learning and work........".

Fryer talked about David Blunkett, the blind British Secretary of State for Education, a man who had been in the education field for years, having been allocated the education portfolio in the shadow cabinet whilst the labour Party was in opposition. His guide-dog, Lucy, a black Labrador, used to be a great favourite in the House of Commons. She retired honourably as an old lady not long ago and has been replaced by a younger, more agile yellow labrador guide.

To quote Fryer on Blunkett :

"David Blunkett has a wonderful vision which he expressed in the Green Paper, 'The Learning Age', and which remains for me a benchmark against which all initiatives need to be tested. In his foreword, the Secretary of State wrote : "We need the creativity, enterprise and scholarship of all our people. As well as securing our economic future, learning has a wider contribution. It helps make ours a civilized society, develops the spiritual side of our lives and promotes active citizenship. Learning enables people to play a full part in their community. It strengthens the family, the neighbourhood, and consequently the nation. It helps us fulfil our potential and opens doors to a love of music, art and literature. That is why we value learning for its own sake as well as for the equality of opportunity it brings."

"I cannot remember an official government publication that was serious enough to capture the idea of spirituality as well as creativity in the breadth of its compass. We need to remember what Mr Blunkett said.

"It is impossible to believe that however good any school and further education system was, it could deal with all the problems encountered throughout life. Increasingly, directors of education, head teachers, teachers and some school governors are realizing that lifelong learning concerns them, but we still have a long way to go and there are many challenges. . . . . . .

"Nearly eight million adults have serious difficulties with the basic skills of literacy and numeracy. We have seven million adults with no qualification whatsoever and 35 per cent of the workforce has never been offered a single day's training. There has been a welcome increase in learning at work in the past decade; the downside is that it goes mostly to professionals who are already highly qualified. We have a widening gap in qualifications, achievement, aspiration, and access to information in communications technology. We have too many people who are indifferent or hostile to the opportunities of learning."

A country with an almost 100 per cent literacy rate has its problems. Naturally of a different and less menacing sort from those of a country such as this one with a true literacy rate of some 20 per cent, with too many people aspiring to learn and too few facilities for them to learn.

Fryer maintains that there is a huge gap between the educationally qualified and unqualified. His question : What can schools do about this? His answer: "They are remarkable resources and I would like to see them made community centres of learning. Schools are the most valued, accessible and safe places in most communities. We need their buildings, their equipment and their teachers to be used and celebrated by everyone.They need to be used not only during school hours in school terms but during all hours throughout the year. In addition to providing opportunities for children to reach their highest possible levels, we need to raise the expectations and aspirations of everyone in the community and imbue in children the attitudes and competences of learning throughout life, not only study skills, but a whole bundle of others, including critical thining and cross-curricular compentence. These should become the norm so that there is a habit of lifelong learning."

We in Pakistan need schools. Period.

Musharraf took over this country from a corrupt undisciplined man, a dangerous despot, who sought to become the Shadow of God on Earth, the Ameerul Momineen, by threatening to promulgate his 15th constitutional amendment. Musharraf initially set out, so he obliquely once informed us, to be another Attaturk. We saw him relaxed and smiling, standing with his family and dogs. Soon Attaturk was ditched and the dogs were removed from the public limelight. For a few months I had quite a job convincing people that he is no relative of Big Chief Wumilong Umboppa and that the dogs have not been eaten up. Luckily and to my great relief, in his August interview on the BBC, when asked a foolish question about dogs being 'anti-Islamic', he answered, "Well I don't think dogs are anti-Islamic, certainly. I don't know who called them anti-Islamic. Well, let me admit to you very frankly, I love my dogs and my dogs love me also. It's a mutual love."

In April this year, he made noises about introducing procedural safeguards against the application of the highly controversial blasphemy laws. These were and are being used to incriminate innocent people. He was navigating soundly. Then suddenly, under fundo-pressure, he retracted. Not even a weak man likes a vacillating general.

The most important problem that Musharraf must address is that of an illiterate population explosion which means an explosion of bigots. Each minute eight babies are born in Pakistan, or 480 each hour, or 11,520 each day, or 4,204,000 each year. Let us assume that infant mortality takes its toll. Even then, at the end of five years, the survivors, some three million-plus, would need to find schools with places available. How does this government hope to educate, in the true sense of the word, the coming generations and endow them with free minds unless, as of now, it makes some move to contain the obscurantists, the bigots?

Any suggestions? Will the educated educate us?