KARACHI: “The Sindh Textbook Board was printing 25 million textbooks a year earlier but this time it printed 27.5 million books, which points to the fact that there have been increased enrolments in our schools,” said Senior Minister for Education in Sindh Nisar Ahmed Khuhro here on Thursday.

The minister was briefing the media following a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Curriculum and Textbook Reforms in the Sindh Assembly building.

“Our schools have been making do with the 2002 curriculum, which was to be reviewed in 2006, but wasn’t for some reason. Then came the 18th amendment, allowing some independence and in October last year we started work on a new curriculum. Now Sindh is the only province which has made reforms in the primary school curriculum till class four,” he said.

“Still, as it is a new curriculum, we have decided to go step by step. We have made relevant changes and new additions to the course material up to class four and class five to eight, the elementary school years, we intend to work on now. We also hope to complete that part by April or May next year, so we are on the right track, I believe.”

‘Sindh is the only province which has made reforms in the primary school curriculum’

He said the changes in the curriculum were designed to open children’s minds and make them progressive and liberal while remaining loyal to their country.

“We had an advisory committee for the subject matter. We had to make it interesting for the kids to bring them back to school,” he said.

“Earlier there was no general knowledge book for class two but now we have introduced a book which is a combination of general knowledge and ethics. Similarly, social science and ethics has been brought into the class three curriculum just like class four now has a general knowledge book on history and geography. We will follow the same guidelines and policy for the other books we will be working on. That’s how education today can help in nation-building.”

It was said that the books for classes one to four had already been distributed in government schools for which the minister had been getting verifications, too. “I have been getting evidence of this through videos, photographs and mobile phone messages,” the minister said.

The textbooks, meanwhile, are not available in the market. They are only available at government schools, where they are given free to the students. As for private schools which are registered with the education department, there is an allocation for the books, which can be bought for Rs25 to Rs75.

There is also a provision in the new curriculum for including the education of physically challenged children. “The education department also feels responsible for handicapped children. For deaf and dumb children, we are giving training to teachers to teach in sign language in normal schools as there are anyway few schools in villages and hardly any special schools. So such children should also be able to study at normal schools,” he said.

Minister Khuhro also said he had until now opened 1,800 new schools across the province. He said he had also arranged for testing some 2,700 teachers for the vacant positions. “All will be hired on merit,” he said. “And after all these vacant posts have been filled by competent teachers, the number of new schools will be increased to 3,000,” he said.

About the testing of teachers, he said the education department was planning to hire good female teachers. “Where the females have secured 60 per cent marks or more, we are giving them 20 bonus marks in order to encourage more females to step into the teaching profession as I believe woman can serve better than men as teachers due to their gentle ways with children,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2014