Terrorism: An Evaluation of Students’ Awareness and Attitude at Kust, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Muhammad Munir, Syed Rashid Ali, Niaz Muhammad, Mussawar Shah, Abdullah, Imran

Abstract
The basic purpose of this research was to assess the students’ awareness about terrorism and
attitudes towards learning about terrorism in the university curriculum. Kohat University of
Science and Technology (KUST) was the universe of the study; 102 respondents (students)
were selected randomly who were equally divided in terms of gender. A questionnaire was
used for data collection. The collected data was analyzed by using Chi-Square Test. 63.7 %
of the respondents were from rural area; 74.5% of the respondents were in the age group of
21-25 years. At bivariate analysis a relation was computed between dependent variable (the
level of knowledge) and independent variables (importance of knowledge on different social
problems, & different aspects of terrorism). In this, a significant relationship was found
between first learning about terrorism, identification of victim of terrorism, identification of
terrorist and level of knowledge on terrorism. Similarly, a significant relationship was found
between social effects of homelessness to university education, the terrorism aspect of
identification of victim of terrorism, the terrorism aspect of government’s response to
terrorism, and level of knowledge on terrorism. Further, a non significant relationship was
figured out between the occurrences of terrorism in Pakistan, the importance of the topic of
the social effects of child abuse and level of knowledge about terrorism. In addition, a nonsignificant relationship was detected between social effects of domestic violence, social
effects of corruption to their university education, the terrorism aspect of lobbying and
advocacy and level of knowledge about terrorism. In light of the study findings, it is
recommended that the Higher Education Commission should introduce subject on terrorism
in all universities of Pakistan which would help in minimizing the occurrence of terrorism in
the country.

Keywords: Terrorism, Students, Awareness and Attitude, KUST