Educational Prospects in Promoting and Strengthening Peace in Pakistan: A mixed method study

Abstract

Education plays a vital role in the establishment of Peace in a country. It does so by developing tolerance, unity of the human race, and respect for all human beings among the people. The study aimed to explore educational prospects for promoting and strengthening Peace in Pakistan. Two thousand teachers for the teacher survey (TS) were selected by multi-stage stratified and convenience sampling. Interviews of educationists and students were conducted to make cross discussion on results of TS. A mixed method, convergent parallel research design was used in this study. A Likert-type survey scale was used to collect quantitative data, and interviews were conducted to collect qualitative data about the research problem. Mean ANOVA, correlation, and regression were applied to analyze quantitative data, and thematic and content analyses were used to analyze qualitative data. The results of TS reveal that teachers are not sure that the aims of education include the promotion of Peace in the country as an objective and curriculum of the secondary and higher secondary level has sufficient material for promoting Peace in the country. The teachers agree that they adopt a peace-promoting teaching strategy and evaluation. However, the results of student interviews reveal that the teaching strategy adopted by the teachers for promoting Peace is very poor, and the evaluation of peace attitudes is informal, not formal. The results of educationists' interviews reveal that education can play a crucial role in promoting Peace in the country through aims and objectives, curriculum, teaching strategy, and evaluation.