Investigating the Inclusion of Human Rights Education in Pakistani Elite Schools: A Qualitative Content Analysis of History Textbooks

Abstract

Pakistani educational system is broadly divided into public and private sectors. Due to specific financial and administrative issues, the public sector has failed to produce social capital that could serve as an advocate of human rights. However, elite schools in the private sector are better equipped to educate their students on human rights. Through qualitative content analysis, the present study explores the status of human rights in history textbooks taught in elite schools from grade 6 to O-levels and the International Baccalaureate (I.B.) Middle Years Programme (MYP). It was observed that the human rights issues in Pakistan remained part of the null curriculum in the books published for Pakistani students. In the I.B. books, human rights issues were discussed at the global level, leaving elite students ignorant and oblivious to the state of human rights in Pakistan. It is suggested that human rights should be transformed from abstract and generalized statements to absolute and concrete reality, first stemming from local society and then advancing to a global community.