APROPOS the news report ‘Provinces empowered to decide on mother languages’ published on page 3 (Jan 21). While thanks are due to Dawn for informing readers on a subject of vital importance, and while the report is substantially accurate, certain perhaps inadvertent errors require clarification.

The meeting referred to in which this writer presided was a meeting of the National Curriculum Council’s (NCC) Committee on Medium of Instruction. It was not a meeting of the NCC itself , as reported.

This writer is an adviser, in an honorary, voluntary capacity to the NCC, and not an adviser to the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, as reported.

Para 4 of the first draft of the working paper prepared by the NCC secretariat for the committee’s meeting referred to the diversity of our regional languages but inadvertently omitted to state that their choices as mediums of instruction at the relevant levels are to be determined by the respective provincial governments.

The omission will be rectified in the revised version being prepared to reflect the consensus reached at the Jan 20 meeting .

Senator (r) Javed Jabbar
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2020