January 25, 2007	Thursday	Muharram 05, 1428

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PESHAWAR, Jan 24: The NWFP government will include a chapter on ‘enlightened moderation’ in Pakistan Studies textbooks in the context of Islam as an enlightened religion and not the way President Pervez Musharraf defines the term, said provincial Education Minister Maulana Fazl-i-Ali Haqqani here on Wednesday.

The minister said at a press conference that he had conveyed his reservations to the federal government during a recent inter-provincial education ministers’ meeting regarding inclusion of a chapter on ‘enlightened moderation’ in the textbooks of Pakistan Studies for class 9 and 10.

“I asked the federal government what was their idea of enlightened moderation but even they did not know how to explain it,” said the minister. If it was the enlightened moderation as propagated by President Musharraf then certainly the NWFP did not agree to it, he said.

The federal government had allowed the NWFP to include a chapter on ‘enlightened moderation in the context of Islam as Islam is an enlightened religion’, the minister said.

He claimed that the MMA government had been able to ‘protect’ the curriculum from secularisation at least in the NWFP and its recommendations would be included in the approved syllabus to be taught in the province.

The NWFP government had conveyed its reservations earlier to the federal education ministry over the draft of the new scheme of studies which would be effective from August, 2007, he said. The curriculum based on that draft was secular and some Quranic verses had not been included in it, he added.

The provincial education minister said that federal government had accepted the NWFP’s recommendations regarding inclusion of 180 Quranic verses in the syllabus of Islamiyat for class 9 and 10 and Islamiyat as a separate subject for class one.

“A total of 161 Quranic verses had been removed although the province had proposed inclusion of 180 verses in the course for class 9 and 10. Quran, Hadith, Ijma and Qiyas were also not included while Arabic words were deleted. It was proposed that Islamiyat be treated as a part of general knowledge for students of class one instead of introducing it as a separate subject,” he said.

He said the provinces had not developed consensus on the draft as the NWFP and Balochistan had expressed reservations about it.

The federal education ministry had allowed the recommendations of the NWFP and Balochistan to be included in the curriculum taught in the two provinces, he said.

The Punjab and Sindh education ministers had accepted the draft tabled by the federal government, he said.

The federal government had also allowed the NWFP to introduce chapters depicting the life and works of the four Caliphs and those related to Seerat in Urdu and Islamiyat for students of the province.

The NWFP government had also rejected ‘de-regulation policy’ for the textbook boards, the minister said. “The policy is an attempt to end the role of the boards.” He said the provincial governments would neither have control over the publication of textbooks nor would they be able to make sure timely publication of the books if the policy was implemented.

The ministers said English, Pakistan Studies, science and general mathematics had been made compulsory for madressah students.