Representatives of some 50 seminaries from across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and adjacent tribal belt are taking part in the training workshop for teachers of religious schools that started in the Bara Gali summer campus of the University of Peshawar on Tuesday.
The Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies of the University of Peshawar (UoP) has arranged the workshop inaugurated by UoP Vice-Chancellor Dr Azmat Hayat Khan. In his address, he said the aim of the workshop was to bridge the gap between university and religious seminary and keep a close liaison between the two.
Dr Azmat said the religious schools had remained an important instrument of disseminating religious education in this part of the world, but certain elements had exploited these institutions for their personal gains. He stressed the need for dissemination of both religious and modern education by the religious schools.
“This will help us in clearly defining our religious point of view and convincing others through concrete supportive evidence of Islam and modern sciences. As a teacher it is your responsibility to build capacity of the students and enable them to meet the global requirements,” he stressed.
Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies Director Prof Dr Qibla Ayaz described methods of essay writing to the teachers. He said that in contemporary world many new topics had emerged for discussion and in such situation it is the responsibility of religious scholars to know the topics through modern research for tangible dialogue.
In the prevailing turbulence, he said the whole world is blaming religion as the main causative agent. “This is a wrong perception and we need to convey to the world that religion is not the problem but solution of the trouble across the globe,” he remarked.
Topics like self-actualisation of teachers, conflict resolution in various religious and world issues and human rights and globalisation were the main events of the inaugural ceremony. The concluding ceremony of the workshop would be held on July 22.