PESHAWAR: The fear of backlash from religio-political parties has forced the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government into abandoning the plan to make changes to three major subjects taught in its schools to meet the minimum standards collectively developed by the federal and provincial governments almost a year ago.

“The religious political parties have become so powerful pressure groups for the education department as they aren’t letting it do necessary changes to Islamiat, Urdu and Social Studies books. The students will be the ultimate sufferers if those books aren’t reviewed,” an official in the elementary and secondary education department told Dawn.

The official said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board and Directorate of Curricula and Teachers Education had jointly begun the process of improving textbooks from nursery to intermediate levels a few months ago by making necessary changes.

“The review or standardisation of textbooks of Mathematics, General Science, English, Chemistry, Physics and Biology from primary to intermediate levels is in progress. However, the books of Islamiat, Urdu and Social Studies won’t be reviewed due to the fear of hostile response from pressure groups, chiefly religio-political parties,” he said.

Islamiat, Urdu, Social Studies books exempted from ongoing syllabus standardisation in KP

Another official holding a key position in the education department complained whenever a chapter or topic in textbooks was changed in line with the needs of students and modern times, religious parties took to the street to pressure the department to undo those changes.

“Improvement of textbooks is a continuous process everywhere in the world. Changes are made to textbooks from time to time,” he said.

The official said it was the pressure of religious parties, which had forced the education department not to make changes to the books of Islamiat, Urdu and Social Studies.

“We don’t know how long these books will remain unchanged,” he said.

The official said books for the classes up to fifth grade were in the final stage of review and once that was over, the books would go into printing.

He added that the reviewed books would be taught in schools in the next academic session slated to begin in April next year.

According to officials, the books taught in the government schools are developed under the 2006-7 curricula. However, grade 9-12 Islamiat books are developed under the 2000 curricula.

All books were developed in line with the existing curriculum enforced in 2006-7 by the previous provincial government. However, the new Islamiat books for 9-12 grades weren’t introduced due to the strong opposition by religious parties.

The minimum standards were approved by the E&SE department last year after they were unanimously framed by all provinces and the centre.

The officials said the minimum standards were developed regarding curricula, textbooks, teachers and students’ assessment, school learning environment etc to maintain uniformity up to some extent in the education sector of the country.

They said after the decentralisation of the subject of the elementary and secondary education, including its curriculum, in light of the 18th Constitutional Amendment, the development of the minimum standards for education sector was a vital decision.

According to the standards, the textbooks and other learning materials should be aligned with the curriculum by promoting child-centered pedagogy and advancing harmony and unity for national cohesion and integrity.

They support inquiry-based learning, critical thinking and problem solving free from gender, ethnic, religious, sectarian, geographical, cultural, occupational biases, and respect diversity.

The officials said the exercise of reviewing textbooks and incorporating quality content into them was to be executed in four phases to be completed by June 2018.

They said in the first phase, which had entered the final stage, the General Science, Mathematics and English textbooks of primary level would be reviewed, while in the second, the review of General Science, Mathematics and English books of middle level would be carried out.

The officials added that the textbooks of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, English, Mathematics and General Science for high and higher secondary schools would be reviewed and improved in the third and fourth phases respectively.

Minister for elementary and secondary education Mohammad Atif Khan was not available for comments despite repeated attempts.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2016