THERE is no doubt that the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution that devolved many aspects of governance and administration from the centre to the provinces was a landmark step that met a long-standing demand. The provinces should have control over as many matters as possible that directly concern them. There are, however, some areas where total provincial autonomy has raised concerns, for example, drug regulation and certain aspects of the provision of healthcare. On Wednesday, another tricky area reared its head: curriculum development. The minister of state for education has written to the provincial chief ministers pointing out that poor coordination among provincial departments responsible for curriculum development was ‘creating discrepancies in the quality and content of the courses’.

The government is now proposing to set up a national curriculum commission to ensure that a uniform course of study is followed in schools and colleges across the various provinces. The proposed commission would include representatives of the provincial and federal governments, and its head would be appointed on a rotational basis. Notwithstanding the strong and valid arguments for provincial autonomy, at least in theory the government’s suggestion is a logical step forward. That the curricula of different provinces have been tinkered with at different times and by different governments and political parties to perpetuate one ideology or the other, to the detriment of students’ ability to think critically, is a matter of record. It is in this context, perhaps, that subjects such as history and religion should be standardised — and in a way that there are no biases, and no revisions of historical fact. And yet, in other subjects, how practical is the argument for a uniform curriculum? For instance, students from remote, underdeveloped regions, where teacher absenteeism is rife, may not be at par with their counterparts in urban areas. Would the former be able to attain the same number of marks in exams as those students who have had a better grounding in the subjects being tested? These loopholes require extensive discussions and all the provinces have a crucial role to play in identifying the drawbacks of a uniform curriculum and ways of overcoming them. Without provincial consensus and input, the centre’s suggestion will not work.