OUT of Pakistan’s 300,000 public and private schools, only a handful offer literature as a compulsory subject. Most schools follow the Pakistan National Curriculum requirement of integrating literature in English-language studies. Schools that follow the UK national curriculum teach literature to the advantage of their students.

At its core, literature introduces children to complex ideas and thinking processes, laying the foundation for critical thinking across subjects. It helps develop reading and comprehension skills and vocabulary and nurtures imagination and creativity. Above all, it helps prepare students for the real world, where they are grounded in skills that are needed for social uplift, reform and transformation.

Arundhati Roy confronts caste oppression, militarisation and state violence in The God of Small Things. Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace woke up his society to the impact of peaceful resistance. Later, his works influenced Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. The ripple effects of social thought percolate down many generations.

For centuries, literature has helped children feel the experience of other people, other cultures. Isabel Allende’s magical realism in The House of Spirits highlights political repression,........

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