United States of America's War on Terrorism: Its Impact on Youth ad Education Sector in Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan

Abstract

The United States of America’s War on Terror (WOT) and its implications is a most debated agenda item in Pakistan. A mixed method study has been therefore conducted to fulfil four purposes; to ascertain the extent of WOT’s impact on the wellbeing of the tribal youth in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA); to assess the impact of WOT on education in FATA; to determine the sentiments of tribal youth for United States of America; and to identify the influence of education on the change of tribal youth’s sentiments for United States of America. The impact of WOT on the wellbeing of the youth has been ascertained through conduct of qualitative study on one thousand and forty two students of FATA, who experienced WOT and were separately enrolled (five hundred and twenty one students each) with educational institutions, as well as deeni madaris in FATA and with universities in Islamabad by using phenomenography approach. Same approach has been used to record tribal youth’s sentiments for United States of America. Whereas the case study research approach has been used to ascertain the impact of WOT on education. The tribal youth’s experiences related to WOT were recorded through conduct of interviews by using Childhood War Trauma Questionnaire (CWTQ) and Child Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Scale (CPSS). The study not only concluded the tribal youth’s sufferings from war traumas to include its displacement; separation from parents; loss of close relations; witnessing of torturing, intimidations, injuring and / or killings; exposure to the armed combat; facing harassment and manhandling; sustaining of physical injuries; active or passive involvement in the hostilities; and extreme depravation but also observed both presence of a high level of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms and existence of functional impairment among majority of the tribal youth. The tribal youth’s hostile sentiments for the United States of America being the proprietor of WOT were also identified as a general phenomenon among entire youth belonging FATA; however, the FATA students studying in universities of Islamabad did express some pro-American sentiments which may be attributed to their exposure to better educational opportunities. The study also concluded significant impact of WOT on education in FATA and the glaring incidents included; destruction of educational institutions by militants; dysfunctionality of educational institutions; decrease in educational institutions, students and teachers; high dropouts and uncontrolled repetitions of classes by the students; over-crowdedness; disturbed students to institution, classroom and teacher ratios; deterioration in literacy levels; high levels of teachers absenteeism; reliance for formal education on deeni madaris; and above all large youth being out of school. The study also makes valuable recommendations for improving wellbeing of the tribal youth, as well as education sector in FATA and suggests guidelines for the future studies.