British Pakistani Boys, Education and the Role of Religion

In the Land of the Trojan Horse

Karamat Iqbal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351021043
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

British Pakistani children are the second largest ethnic group in UK schools, yet little of their education and wider needs have been researched. British Pakistani Boys, Education and the Role of Religion seeks to rectify this, by investigating the educational achievement of British Pakistani boys and the importance of education both in the Pakistani community and in the wider religion of Islam.

The book draws on research undertaken by the author in three British state secondary schools, to respond to the national policy on the education of ethnic minority children. It considers the meaning of education for Pakistanis, where religion plays an integral role, the gaps in education as well as the issue of representation - in governance and in the teaching workforce. The author concludes by discussing the possibility of responsive education better meeting the needs of Pakistani children by integrating Islamic religious education and education of the world.

British Pakistani Boys, Education and the Role of Religion will be vital reading for academics and both undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of Education and Sociology and specifically those studying inclusion, equality and diversity, or Asian, Muslim or Pakistani education. It would also appeal to education practitioners, policy makers and community activists.

1
Introduction

Autobiographical sociology

I bring to the research my personal experience and insight as both a first generation immigrant to the UK and an education practitioner. These have enabled me to understand the subject under study, within its context, identify the research questions and provided me with the ability to make sense of the data gathered.

Long before the education of Pakistani boys became a research topic, it was a personal experience, for I was one such boy. Gradually, it became a topic to observe, to learn about, to become concerned with and then, many years later, it became a problem to research. I provide here a brief sketch of my personal and professional journey.

I spent my early years in the Pakistani-controlled Azad Kashmir. My connection with Birmingham was established soon after I was born when my father had decided to come to the UK, known locally as vilayat (a derivative of Blighty). He was a part of the early cohort of people who had migrated from our country to the UK. After five years in Birmingham, he relocated back home.

In Kashmir, I attended the local primary school where I was a conscientious student. Soon after transferring to the secondary school my family decided to send me to live with my older sister in Birmingham, in the hope that I would have better opportunities for education and employment. I was 12 years of age at the time.

Upon arrival in Birmingham, in line with educational practice at the time, I was sent to an Immigrant Reception Centre so that I could be immersed in the English language and, soon after, I transferred to our neighbourhood secondary modern. My new school served its immediate working class community, previously White but now also Pakistani.

I continued to be a hard-working student, with a drive to learn and the determination to overcome any barriers I faced. I made good use of my local public library and joined a local evening institute for additional lessons in English. My hard work paid off. By the time I left school after three years, I had achieved a number of CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education).

Soon after leaving school in 1974, I began to volunteer at a local Saturday School for Pakistani children. I was also a part of the Asian Youth Association which had been set up by Birmingham’s Community Relations Council, to explore leisure provision for Asian young people. Later this became a full-time job when I was appointed as a Youth and Community Worker, through a Birmingham City Council Positive Action scheme.

After leaving school I continued my education through evening classes and day-release given by my employers. This enabled me to achieve the qualifications necessary to gain entry to university, six years after leaving school, to study for a Bachelor of Education.

Upon qualifying as a teacher I worked for Birmingham’s Multicultural Support Service. In the school I was sent to teach, I recall the Pakistani pupils questioning my credentials as a teacher; so unusual it was for them to have a Pakistani in such a role. Many years later I found myself working for Birmingham Education, this time as an Education Adviser. My duties included researching educational underachievement of ethnic minorities. Later, I came to be known as a ‘champion’ of the White working class for my focus on their education. I produced a number of reports, one of which was used as the main text for an Adjournment Debate in Parliament. This work provided a foundation for my current study.

Pakistani-Birmingham;¹ development of a community

Following World War II there was a major labour shortage in Britain where the factories and foundries were busy helping to rebuild the country after the war. This led to a policy to encourage the arrival of migrants from countries within the British Empire, including the new nation of Pakistan, created after the Partition of India. Their entry was made easier by the passing of 1948 Nationality Act which “gave all imperial subjects the right to free entry into post-war Britain” (Winder, 2004, p. 332).

The national profile of the Pakistani community changed from a few thousand in 1950 to nearly three-quarters of a million at the turn of the century (Peach, 2006). While the majority of the Pakistanis were from Kashmir, significant numbers also came from areas such as Attock, Ghurghushti, Nowshera, Peshawar, Jehlum, Gujrat, Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad and Sialkot (Dahya, 1973; Abbas, 2010).

As a major industrial centre, Birmingham has had many ethnic communities settling amongst its population leading to the city becoming ‘superdiverse’ (Rex & Moore, 1967; Vertovec, 2007). Similar to the national development of the Pakistani community, their presence in the city changed rapidly from the 1950s, reaching 40,565 by 1981 and constituting 4% of the city’s total population (Anwar, 1996). By 1991, at 6.9%, Birmingham had the largest Pakistani population of any British city (Tackey et al., 2006). Having been the largest single ethnic minority group for some time, the community is predicted to make up 21% of the city’s population by 2026 (Dorling &Thomas, 2008).

Upon arrival in Birmingham, as elsewhere in the UK, Pakistanis were faced with a difference-blind policy approach² of treating everyone the same even though people had different needs, circumstances and historical trajectories. According to Sutcliffe and Smith (1974) “the Government had to maintain that there was no difference between immigrant Commonwealth citizens and indigenous Britons” (p. 369). For Newton (1976) this is a problem of the pluralist theory which “tends to work on the assumption that each and every interest is equally capable of organising and defending itself” (p. 228).

Historically, given the vast majority of Pakistanis originated from rural and underdeveloped areas, their education level was much lower upon entry to the UK compared to many other migrant communities (Anwar, 1979). They, therefore, lost out to the more advantaged Indian community or the more organised and vocal Black Caribbean community. This poor educational start of the Pakistanis was to lead to the community remaining behind other ethnic minorities (Abbas, 2010). It also provides a critical backdrop to educational achievement of the community’s young people.

The disadvantaged context of the Pakistanis was acknowledged by the Birmingham Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Commission (BSLC), which showed that there was under-representation of Pakistanis in the City Council’s workforce, by 4.9% – indicated by the gap between their presence in the Council’s workforce (2%) and in the local population (6.9%) (BSLC, 2001). My later research showed the gap had increased by 2012. While the Pakistani proportion in the workforce had nearly doubled, their presence in the local population had also doubled to 13.5%. This meant that the gap was now 9.6%. Abbas and Anwar (2005) pointed out that big Birmingham employers and service providers do not take race equality seriously. This was confirmed by my later research which showed that many organisations which claimed to have a diverse workforce often tended to employ other ethnic minority groups such as Black Caribbean and Indian (Iqbal, 2013).

Within the education sector, under-representation of Pakistanis was apparent amongst both the workforce and the composition of school governing bodies. For BSLC (2001), it was of fundamental importance that the teaching workforce and governing bodies reflected the ethnic composition of schools. Cox (2001) pointed out that people not fluent in English faced discrimination. They experienced an atmosphere that tended to favour educated professionals who had a better grasp of the jargon associated with the education process. He also pointed out that many people from ethnic minority communities felt that they were not taken seriously because their limited English often meant they were unable to put their point across effectively in meetings.³ As a result, many only attended meetings infrequently and then drifted away.

Pakistani children; a neglected group

As researchers we are asked: why do we do educational research? For me the answer is quite clear: to impact on policy, to empower ourselves and the people we are researching and to search for truth. I have drawn on the work of a number of social justice–oriented writers and activists. Sivanandan (1982) has said:

Knowledge is not a goal in itself, but a path to wisdom; it bestows not privilege so much as duty, not power so much as responsibility. … But the business of the educated is … to turn those skills to the service of their people.

(p. 89)

In such a context our responsibility as researchers is clear; to serve the local community as well as policymakers and professionals. Eqbal Ahmad saw the function of knowledge to comprehend reality in order to change it (Babar, 2015). Following Stuart Hall’s advice, I would like to tell people how reality really is – to look it in the face. For Basit (2013), the creation of knowledge and its dissemination was a moral act; she saw it as researchers’ role to ensure that it leads to educational and social improvement by challenging unjust policies and practices. I especially agree with Angela Davis when she points out that knowledge is useless unless it assists us to question habits, social practices, institutions, ideologies and the state.⁴ For her, new knowledge allows new questions to be asked. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, I do not wish merely to interpret and report on a social situation but to change it for the better. I would like to contribute new knowledge so to help for new questions to be raised. Following Gardner’s advice (2011), I will strive to make my work accessible, relevant, persuasive, credible and authoritative in order to get my message across. I hope that the knowledge I produce helps to improve the education of Pakistani children and leads to some transformation, however small. I see the knowledge I have been privileged to acquire as having ‘political implications’ in contexts beyond the academic world. Ladson-Billings (2006) asks us as education researchers to help to find answers to pressing education questions. For me, the educational achievement and underachievement of Pakistani young people is currently one such pressing issue for which I hope to provide some possible answers.

The aim of making the knowledge one produces useful also raises questions about accessibility. While the language used in one’s writing has to be credible within the academy, it has to be understood too by the wider community. I hope not to become mired in separatist language with ‘alienating jargon’ in what I write. Following Sivanandan’s advice (1982), my aim is to create knowledge that is accessible for the wider community, expressed not in terms private to me and my academic peers, but in familiar language which can be accessed by the general community.

While the problem of ethnic minority underachievement in England was acknowledged by the government many years ago (Swann Report, 1985), the focus at the time, and for m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• Glossary
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 In the land of the Trojan Horse
• 3 A note on the research
• 4 Meaning and importance of education for Pakistanis
• 5 The gaps in education
• 6 A diverse teaching workforce
• 7 Teacher understanding of Pakistani pupils
• 8 A culturally responsive education for Pakistani students
• Index