June 21, 2006	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 24, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, June 20: Federal Minister for Education Lt-Gen (retired) Javed Ashraf Qazi has expressed his displeasure over the reappearing of mistakes in textbooks approved by the curriculum wing and warned the officials concerned of strict disciplinary actions, sources in the curriculum wing told Dawn.

They said the minister had taken serious notice of recurring mistakes in the textbooks, be it regarding language, facts and figures or obsolete lessons.

This not only brings bad reflection on the efficiency of all those working in the curriculum wing but also causes a great embarrassment for the minister and other senior officials of the wing at various forums.

Therefore, the minister has advised all officials of the curriculum wing to be extra-vigilant in processing the cases of manuscripts’ approval and ensure that nothing went wrong.

Besides, the minister’s office has issued new directives to the curriculum wing that during the review process qualifications and bio-data of authors, editors and compilers of manuscripts should be verified; whether they have relevant qualifications and experience in the field of curriculum development.

Besides ensuring that the manuscript was compatible with the curriculum in terms of sequence of topics and concepts, the actual review of the contents should also be ensured.

If any of the manuscripts does not meet the ministry’s requirements, it should be immediately sent back to the respective textbook boards and publishers for revising the manuscripts accordingly, said the directives.

While review of the contents of a manuscript is generally the responsibility of the national review committee and select committee, the desk officers concerned should personally supervise the review process to ensure that the language used in the manuscript is easy to understand and according to the mental level of the students of a particular class.

However, the sources said, the ministry was working on a detailed process for review of the textbooks.