Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood lamented the fact that a “certain class” within the country thought that only Oxford or Cambridge could be considered as standards of education on Sunday, and said that the Single National Curriculum (SNC) would help Pakistan achieve the same international standard.
Speaking at a local news talk show, the education minister said that the new curriculum would improve education standards across the country for students, adding that will aim to bring about equality in the sense that madrassah students and students of elite schools and colleges will enjoy the same facilities.
“And those standards will be higher, not lower,” he added.
“Our syllabus can be compared with that of any other syllabus around the world,” he said. “We have prepared it keeping in mind modern standards [of education],” added Shafqat.
In reply to a question, the education minister explained that the standards of teacher training and distance learning would be improved.
Earlier this month, Shafqat had announced that the academic year would begin in August this year and that the country will adopt the SNC from the next academic year.
The announcement had been made through the official Twitter account of the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, wherein the ministry had stated that it has developed the SNC with consultation from the relevant stakeholders for grades pre-1 to 5 and that this “shall be followed by all public and private schools across the country from next academic year”.
According to the ministry, under the directives from the federal minister for education, the new year “would start now in August 2021 due to extension in examination dates to be held in May/June and also prolonged school closures in the academic year of 2020”.
Furthermore, the ministry had said that a letter was sent to all provincial and area governments regarding the Textbook Policy under the unified curriculum.
It had stated that publishers are “allowed to develop these textbooks aligned with SLOs prescribed by SNC” and that they will require a no-objection certificate (NOC) by the provincial textbook boards so that they may “check any inclusion of anti-Pakistan, anti-religion, and any other hate material”.
Meanwhile, the textbook boards have been advised to “exercise due diligence to ensure that private publishers are producing textbooks in line with the objectives and contents of SNC”.
