PESHAWAR: After devolution of the task of developing curricula to provinces under the 18th constitutional amendment, minimum standards of curriculum for all the provinces have been proposed with consensus of all stakeholders, according to sources.

They said that the objective of setting minimum standards was to ensure some uniformity in the curriculum of schools across the country as in future provinces would develop their own curricula.

Stakeholders from all the provinces have also proposed minimum standards in other aspects of education sector like what should be the quality of education, learners, teachers, textbooks, assessment and school learning environment, etc.

The proposed minimum standards for curriculum emphasise the promotion of values for peaceful co-existence, unity in diversity and development of positive attitudes towards fellow human beings through respect and tolerance, according to an official document available with Dawn.

The document states that the curricula should be based on philosophical, cultural and psychological foundation of the nation that promotes national harmony, unity and global citizenship.

These standards emphasise the understanding and application to make education relevant to the lives of students and to inculcate lifelong learning. They also stress on enhancing inbuilt potential of the learners to make the students active citizens.

Under the proposed standards, the provinces have to include emerging trends in curricula, new developments and such applications and concepts that are useful in real life situations for making the subject learning more relevant. The document also suggests a variety of assessment and evaluation strategies to measure knowledge, skills and attitudes as required by all domains of learning.

The stakeholders from across the country have agreed that standards and benchmarks of the core national curriculum will be part of English, Urdu, Maths, Islamiat, General Science, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, General Knowledge, Social Studies, History, Geography, Pak Studies and Computer Education.

The sources said that the inter-provincial technical working group was responsible for approving standards for the above subjects. They said that so far standards had been prepared for Mathematics, General Science, English, History and Geography while standards for rest of the subjects would be prepared with the consensus of stakeholders.

The existing curricula in all the provinces were made in 2006-07 when it was a federal subject. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the implementation of 2006-07 curricula would complete in next academic year starting from April 2015, according to sources.

Work on the formation of standards for curricula started from Feb 2013, the sources said. For this purpose an inter-provincial technical group has been working, which has representation from all the provinces, Fata, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan.

When contacted, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa coordinator for the group Abidullah Kakakhel said that the working group has met several times in the previous two years to set minimum standards for quality education in Pakistan. He said that a two-day meeting of the group commenced in Peshawar on Monday attended by stakeholders from across the country. If the proposed minimum standards for quality education were approved by the working group then a mechanism would be devised for the adoption of standards.

Published in Dawn, November 25th , 2014