PESHAWAR: The adviser on culture to the Unesco from Pakistan and former principal National College of Arts, Lahore, Prof Sajida Vandal and Prof Lala Rukh, a former teacher of art at NCA, paid a special visit to Government Higher Secondary School No 1, Peshawar Cantt, which is one of the reputed educational institutions of the city.

They took a round of its classrooms and inaugurated a `cultural resource room cum cultural school museum` on the school premises during their visit the other day. The school principal, Prof Abdur Ragib, in-charge cultural activities Mohammad Yousaf and cultural coordinator Mohammad Owais Khan were also present on the occasion.

The visit of the Unesco adviser was part of preparing a teacher resource kit for the schools of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata to see how to in-tegrate cultural heritage in curriculum at the school level.

Talking to the senior teachers, Prof Sajida said that children had enormous potential to express themselves in a befitting manner, but the ill-planned syllabus and outdated teaching methods were the main hurdles. She said that unfortunately, most of the teachers either had no or very little knowledge of their own rich cultural diversity, which she claimed was a great loss.

The Unesco adviser said that if teachers and students were made aware of the significance of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, they would try to preserve and safeguard it and would feel proud of possessing it.

She appreciated efforts of the teachers who exhibited activity-based culturally integrated lessons in their classrooms despite lack of resource materials.

Senior teacher Prof Mir Akbar apprised the visiting team of the curricular, literary and cultural activities of the school. He said that students took great interest in activity-based learning and they could easily relate the lessons learnt in classrooms to their immediate environment.

Prof Sajida said that because of globalisation and too much westernisation of our society, probably young Pashtun generation like other youngsters of the country knew more about MacDonaldand guitar, but little about local foods like chapli kabab, tekka karahi gosht and Pashto folk music tapa and rabab, mangay etc.

`I believe it`s a great national loss. We need to include those elements of our culture in our teaching syllabus which is our identity and which is related closely to the student`s personal experiences. People borrow positive things from other cultures as well but it should not be at the cost of our own rich cultural diversity,` she stressed.

She said Pakistan had rich cultural diversity whether local foods, foot wears, dresses, festivals , folk poetry, music, art or different tribal traditions and social practices.

Prof Lala Rukh said that teachers needed orientation on indigenous culture, art and history so that they could transmit authentic information to the young students. She said this would pave the way for social cohesion and peace.

`A culturally aware society never falls prey to intolerance and extremism because our own culture has a good solution for every problem,` Prof Lal Rukh said. The Unesco adviser also visited different classrooms and observed activity-based methods of teachers.

Prof Sajida Vandal gifted an old map of the walled city of Peshawar besides a packet of Urdu, Pashto and English books on Pakhtun art, music and culture for the school library.