An Analytic Study of Absence of Children Literature in English of Pakistani People
Abstract
The purpose of this research paper is to investigate the key issues, Problems and the new challenges in Pakistan. Absence of children Literature in English plays the role of leadership in the society. The purpose of this research is that the people of Pakistan aware the important of children literature in English. They accept them physically, mentally, psychologically, socially, and spiritually awareness of children literature.
Introduction
Children’s Literature is defined as material written and produced for the information or entertainment of children and young adults. It includes all non-fiction, literary and artistic genres and physical formats. Children’s literature is a good quality written work with the purpose of entertainment and information intended primarily for children from birth to adolescent, covering topic of relevance and interest to children that appropriately reflect the experience and realms of childhood through prose and poetry, fiction and nonfiction.
Absence of children literature is a major problem now days. There are many ways like lack of publishing houses, social condition of the people, political historical cultural problem lack of translations etc. All these problems were causes the absences of children literature.
Absences of children literature in English is a most common issues of Pakistan. There are few books of child literature that are borrowed from other countries. Pakistan has no children publishing industry. That is a big cause of absence of children literature.
Second cause of absence of English literature is that economics condition, during the economic crisis of Pakistan, the publishing industry in Pakistan is hampered by the low literacy rate.The company publishes only religion and Urdu books. There is no space of publishing for children literature in English.
Third cause of absences of children literature in English is that lack of translators. The translator of children’s books is not found in Pakistan because most of people are unaware of the important of English and benefit of it. At school or at home, books constitute a significance part of children lives. A book plays an important role in manipulating and influences children. Children have a limited experience that’s why translator encounters the problem of adapting their text. Most of translator use children literature in English as a complex account.
The fourth cause of absence of children literature is that increasing the price of books. The high inflation rate and daily increase in the prices of commodities and raw materials brought the publishing output down to its lowest level in the recent memory that is a reason of absence of children literature. Because children literature books in English are so much expensive that’s why a needy person cannot buy for her children.
Fifth cause of absences of children literature is political negligence. If you want to destroy the future of any nation, no need to wage war with them; defunct their education, they will remain no more live on the map of the world.” there is no attention of political leader to improve the standard of children literature.
A number of factors contribute to the decline in the scholarly output including, but not limited to, inflation, high cost of book and journals, continued low literacy rates, ongoing war on terror which restrict movement of researchers and their ideas for search of truth and ground realities.
Topic
What are the main causes of absence of Children Literature in Pakistan.
Hypothesis
There are social , political. Economic reasons and lack of translation which are responsible for absence of Children Literature in Pakistan.
Research Questions
1.How poverty can be the cause of absence of Children Literature in Pakistan?
2.How economy does effect the Absence of Children Literature in Pakistan?
3.Does politics involve in absence of Children Literature?
4.How lack of translation resulted in lack of progress in Children Literature in Pakistan?
5.How does book selling industry can stop absence of Children Literature in Pakistan?
Literature review
This research describes the subject of children literature in general. The concept of children is a literature that is written for adult and portrays the four main players in the process of translation e.g the author, the translator, the publisher, a critic.
According to peter Hunt (1991:16) he promotes the division of children in to “dead” or “alive” books. He claims that the definition of children as books read by and suitable for children, is not practical as this would include every text ever read by a child. However it is only those books which are contemporary (live) which would be regarded as real children book.
The industry is buoyed by a lucrative overseas market for Urdu and religious books. There is no value for children literature. The book selling industry supplements Pakistan titles with English imports from the U.S. and Britain. During the past year, Pakistan continued to witnesses
a rapidly changing political, social, economic and cultural environment which affected the publishing sector of Pakistan.
Children literature is a very much a cultural construct that continues to evolve our time.according to Maurice sendak outside over there (1981)
It is surely a key to the political, social and economic development. In the recent history, it has become a prominent phenomenon. In the fifteen to seventeen centauries there was no concept of children literature. Children literature is less demanding than literature for adults, and there for less value and interest. The qualities of children literature has always been lower than those for literature written for adults. According to Harranth he complains that translator of children books are not well paid and that their finical situation influences the quality of translations.(1996:15,16.)
According to Musharraf Ali Farooqi “publishing does not exist in Pakistan as an industry. We find many small publishing books for children but there is no proper children programmed. It is even worse for children literature in regional language”.
The Early children's literature consisted of spoken stories, songs, and poems, that would have been used to educate, instruct, and entertain children. Eighteen century was a development of the concept of childhood. The emergence of children literature was start in eighteen century that a separate genre of children's literature began to emerge, with its own divisions, expectations, and canon.
According to French historian Philippe Ariès argued in his 1962 book Centuries of Childhood that the modern concept of "childhood" only emerged in recent times, and that for the greater part of history, children were not viewed as greatly different from adults, and were not given significantly different treatment. As evidence for this position, he noted that, apart from instructional and didactic texts for children written by clerics like the Venerable Bede, and Elfric of Eynsham, there was a lack of any genuine literature aimed specifically at children before the 18th century.
Other scholars have qualified this viewpoint by noting that there was a literature designed to convey the values, attitudes, and information necessary for children within their cultures, such as the Play of Daniel from the 1100s.Pre-modern children's literature, therefore, tended to be of a didactic and moralistic nature, with the purpose of conveying conduct-related, educational and religious lessons.
If you want to destroy the future of any nation, no need to wage war with them; defunct their education, they will remain no more live on the map of the world.”
No politician has paid attention in improving the standard of education so far, as far as the question of history of development of education in Pakistan is concerned.
In post half of the nineteen century, when people in sub continent denied the importance of English literature and they believe learning English literature as betrayal to their country and insult to religion. At the same time Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, arguably the greatest Muslim reformer and statesman of 19th century, was in favour of English literature and called it the modern education. He further explained to Muslim that if they wanted to cope with and defeat British they must acquire the knowledge of English literature and language. Although English is not completely absent for our literature there are books of English for student to study but local languages should supplement English rather than the other way round. There for English as an mandatory medium of communication inevitable.
According to Dr Javed, he said: “We lag behind in producing quality literature for children that would develop their mind in accordance with their ages.” He said that Most of the countries publish children’s books according to different child age groups and their contents are reproduced on CDs and DVDs so that they not only read the books but also see and hear their contents.
Prof Jalil Aali describe the reason of neglection the poetry books for children in Pakistan. He said “By the time poets grow old, they lose the magic of innocence through rough and tumble of the world and are unable to write for children.”
According to Hashmi the theme of child literature was missing in the curriculum of higher education in Pakistan. “We relate university education with child literature because these children will grow up and enter the institution of higher education which should also support their mental growth and help them become good citizens of the state.”
Yet during this period of chaos, a very pleasant change occurred in the publishing Industry – five new publishing agencies of international standard joined were established in Pakistan. The Pak Institute for Peace Studies opened a publishing house named Narratives publishing policy analyses and research studies on regional and global issues. Markings is a new publishing venture focusing on art and calligraphy. Musharraf Ali Farooqi started writing for children in English and Urdu using his publishing agency Kitab. Topical Publishing, based in Lahore, is wide range of high quality titles publishing using quality paper and following international publishing standards. Emel Publishing House in Islamabad are also bringing out titles adhering to international publishing standards.
Universities have also reactivated publishing. The Government College University Lahore established Naqoosh Research Centre an Urdu language and literature research center with goal of bringing out new titles.
Hazara University in Mansehra established an Hazara Chair which will published work in the Hindko language as well as prominent authors of Hazara region (Haripur, Abbottabad, Mansehra). To date the Chair has published twenty titles
Since its inception, Pakistan has remained a weak economy of the world for it has got nothing in its just assets that were aggressively snatched by India. The conflict between the two countries over Kashmir issue has hardly allowed the government to consider and allocate funds in budget for other sectors, the education is not an exception in this regard. Still, only 2% of GDP is allocated for the welfare of education, which is quite inappropriate to meet the demands of education. And it is worth to note that this allocation budget is too not spent for educational purposes, the whole money is taken away by using unfair means by the concerned officials. All these funds are not given through a proper channel so that a false audit report is submitted that the utilization of funds has been spent on requisite purposes.
According to 2002 Economic Survey of United Nations, “Most of the inhabitants of Pakistan are poor and 40% of them live under poverty line, about 70% of its population dwells in villages. About 300,000, young ones are jobless. They have no access to good education”. The reports shows that how much difficulties and troubles have been faced by this poor and suppressed class of the country. Their main occupation is agriculture and its yearly out put cannot meet their daily and basic needs of life. It is worth to note that only 1% landlords hold almost 95% of lands in Pakistan. This unjust division of land further creates economical problems not only for the poor but also the government does not get the lion’s share in this respect.
“If you want to destroy the future of any nation, no need to wage war with them; defunct their education, they will remain no more live on the map of the world.”
No politician has paid attention in improving the standard of education so far, as far as the question of history of development of education in Pakistan is concerned. In case of Sindh, in early 1970s, lingual riots took place and a new cancer of copy culture was introduced and boosted up by politicians to prevail among the people. No official steps were taken in curbing this fatal disease. Now, the result is that throughout the country Sindhi students are understood the out come of copy culture and basic rights in every walk of life are denied to them, because however, they may be genius and creators but the fact remained that they lack in management and unable move the economy of the country just because they bear a title of COPY CULTURE. It was a political conspiracy based on totally bias. Being a Sindhi, I do not favour Sindhis that they are not given a proper share in different walks of life, whatever is happening to them is the only out come of wrong and misled policies which have been blindly followed up by them. Patriotism is the very hinge for all virtues, living in the same country every one at first is Pakistani then Sindhi, Punjabee, Balochee and or Pathan, respectively. So, now it is our turn to turn a new leaf and pace with our other provincial brothers to improve the management of our beloved country Pakistan, believing in “united we stand, divided we fall”. Education has become a question of survival for us; less developed man cannot bring the change in improving the skills that are vital for the uplift of the education.
Irrelevant Induction of Staff:
It has been a dilemma of our educational system that it has embodied irrelevancy in inducting its staff; broadly speaking, I personally have come across enormous experiences in my minute observation, as it has been generally observed that if a person has some specialization in some particular subject but he seems to be teaching something else. More openly, if some one has got his/her masters in English Literature, he seems to be teaching Mathematics to his/her students. The fact remains that students cannot learn first hand and ground information regarding their subjects. Nepotism is kept on priority while inducting staff, the induction of staff on quota system has made impotent the working format of the education system, ministers choose their relatives for induction without thinking that either they could serve better or will create complications for others.
It is also a dreadful fact that today’s young ones have changed their motives pertaining to acquiring education. Actually, “the education should be for the purpose of getting education” as it has been wisely said; but, we have changed the slogan, “education should be for the purpose of getting jobs”. If, we keep on remaining this theory in mind then we will be digressed from our way and education will be out of our reach. By getting education we come to the ways that how we could be able to lead our lives in the best and a possible way.
Unemployment is on full swing throughout the country. Country has been facing huge economical setbacks since its independence. The poor economy of the country cannot meet at once the demand of employment of the countrymen at once. On the one hand the disappointed youth, keeping their degrees in hand, wander the whole day in search of job but ‘No-Vacancy’ sign boards inflate their disappointment on the other. This situation creates negative creation of thoughts in their minds; concluding, they come out as davits to waylay and let their names to be enlisted in criminal list; and society faces much more troubles through this kind of misshapen.
Every one of us takes things differently, so there is a room for different suggestions. All of us should aim at to abreast and pace ahead to take the task of improving the education system in a systematic way by implementation different programmes. Awareness should be created amongst un-aware fellows, the importance of education must be expounded in real terms but in an easy way, different literacy programmes should be commenced throughout the country in order to provide assistance pertaining the impediments faced by the poor. Government should take an active eye and spend much more money for the improvement of primary, secondary and higher education. More schools, colleges and universities, medical and engineering colleges are needed to be opened. Special attention must be paid on the development of scientific and technical education so that the settled trend of people in getting academic education may be diverted to the technical education. Subject relevancy must be paid in mind while induction of staff for the concerned posts. Politics must eliminated from education department. Student should pay attention much more on their studies than chalking walls in propagation of different leaders, by doing so they are just wasting their time; nothing can be got by nefarious means. Honesty of purpose and quality in work should be our motives. Every one of us (parents, students, teachers and the supreme government) should root out the copy culture from top to bottom from educational system that has been eating away the fresh brains of our youth for the times unknown. The education must be got for the purpose of education not for getting jobs. Text books must be updated with current topics and rapidly changing of the scenario of the world must be given in the textual books. These suggestions are not enough but whatever has come in my mind I have honestly jotted down; there is a room for suggestions as already has been mentioned. In the last but not the least let us work together for bringing revolutionary changes for the effective function of educational system in the country. Let us pray to Allah Almighty may He enable us to bring and get our desired results by putting our entire efforts in this
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