April 30, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 23, 1429

ISLAMABAD, April 29: The coalition government will introduce a new curriculum next year to make it attuned to global challenges by focusing more on character building and at the same time imparting world class skills in different disciplines.

“The new curriculum should conform to the requirements of the new knowledge revolution era and should be benched mark against curriculum of other leading nations,” Education Minister Ahsan Iqbal said while presiding over a meeting of all the provincial textbook boards here on Tuesday .

The meeting was called to review the progress in development of textbooks under the new curriculum.

Mr Iqbal, however, made a vague description of what the new curriculum should be and what was wrong with the existing one.

The plans to revise the curriculum becomes all the more significant as changes in it are always considered to be a major decision, as they affect the future generation of the country.

During the meeting, the participants were asked to give their expert opinion within three weeks on the draft of the education policy prepared by the Shaukat Aziz government.

Such opinion will be reflected in the coming education policy, which will also be placed before the parliament for debate before its implementation.

The education ministry was also asked to hand over a draft of the new curricula to the heads of the institutes of teachers training for their expert opinion.

Mr Iqbal also directed the heads of educational institutions to start leadership programme for the teachers, and the teachers prior to their appointment as head teachers must be sent for mandatory leadership programme of at least six months duration.

The development of the textbooks and the new curriculum are scheduled to be introduced in 2008, but due to the delay, it is expected to be implemented next year.

The minister asked the participants to create a network of researchers so as to benefit from the developments in letter and spirit.

While presiding over a separate meeting attended by the heads of the departments of institutes of education research of almost all the major universities, the minister said special emphasis should be laid on teachers’ education as the standard of education was directly linked to quality teachers.

He announced that a two-day national conference on the teacher’s education would soon be arranged that would aim at making teacher’s education more productive and fruitful. The training institutes of teachers must impart best possible training to the teachers, he said, and called upon collaborated work among the teachers training institutes.

All the teacher training institutes should be linked together and must share their research with each other, he emphasised, and asked concerned persons to make a central platform of teachers training institutes so that the work done in one institute was also benefited by others.

“We do not need new education policies,” the minister said, adding that “rather we need concrete action plans for building strong foundations of the education sector in Pakistan.”