Single National Curriculum

In an effort to end disparity within the education system, the PTI government has launched a Single National Curriculum (SNC), aimed at bringing uniformity among the syllabi of private schools, public schools and madrasahs. As a concept, this is a step in the right direction as it would help introduce a more modern and mainstream standard of education to a section of society that currently has to settle for something much inferior and obsolete for the modern world. However, the manner in which the SNC has been developed and the methodology driving its implementation is simply not going to garner the results that are being envisaged. The clubbing together of social studies and science under the common head of ‘general knowledge’, to be taught from grade one through three, is in itself problematic as the significance of both subjects in early learning years will be undermined if they are not taught separately. To add insult to injury, it will be taught in Urdu, making the understanding of crucial scientific concepts such as gravity and photosynthesis for example much harder to grasp for young kids who do not possess the requisite linguistic skills early on to make sense of what is being said in classrooms.

Additionally, it seems a lot of liberty has been taken by those preparing the course material of compulsory subjects, who have peppered books with unnecessary religiosity. One only needs to glance over the content of an SNC grade-four English workbook to spot how the crucial components of composition, comprehension and creative writing have been layered over by Islamic history content. While private schools will somehow navigate around these changes, taking advantage from the fact that there is not much disruption in the way of their teaching protocols, it is the public schools with their lack of resources and the madrasahs that will have a much tougher time grasping what has been introduced and made compulsory so rapidly and abruptly. Neither has the capacity nor the infrastructure to effectively teach the SNC at their respective schools and establishments. The very fact that there are enough stringent structural deficiencies prevalent in the national education system in the way of satisfactorily absorbing the changes that will be brought about by the SNC should be reason enough for a rethink of the entire exercise. How can there be any ‘singularity’ if the adoption of this new system is not sufficiently implementable in madrasahs and public schools?