KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has directed the education department to submit the manuscript of a proposed chapter on the fundamental rights to be incorporated in the subject of Pakistan Studies for higher secondary education in the province.

A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, gave this directive while hearing an application seeking contempt of court proceedings against the education secretary and others for not complying with the court’s Nov 12, 2013 directives to introduce the fundamental rights/human rights as a compulsory subject from IX to XII in the province to create awareness on the subject, as was done in Nepal.

At the outset, the curriculum research and assessment director appeared and filed a report in court through Additional Advocate General Jawad Dero submitting that the Sindh Curriculum Council had in principal agreed to incorporate a chapter on fundamental rights in the subject of Pakistan Studies.

He submitted that the manuscript of the proposed chapter had now been sent to the external review committee, adding that after approved by the review body the same would be sent to the Sindh Textbook Board in October for publishing it in the subject book for the next academic session.

The new chapter will be introduced from academic session 2020-21

However, he maintained that it had been decided to introduce the new chapter on fundamental rights in Pakistan Studies from the academic session 2020-21.

The bench members asked the director to submit a copy of the manuscript of the proposed chapter and adjourned the hearing till Aug 20.

The petitioner, Zubair Khaskheli, submitted through his counsel Rafiq Ahmed Kalwar that the SHC had disposed of a petition on Nov 12, 2013 directing the provincial authorities to introduce fundamental rights/human rights as a compulsory subject in higher secondary education from academic year 2015 and onwards.

However, he said that the order was not complied with and a contempt of court application was filed against the provincial authorities.

The bench had disposed of the petition with the consent of the parties as they agreed on introducing a chapter on fundamental rights/human rights in Pakistan Studies instead of introducing a separate subject for the same.

In the petition, Mr Khaskheli cited the example of Nepal, where human rights education was a part of school syllabus. He asked the court to direct the federal and provincial governments to include articles from the Constitution ensuring protection of human rights in the syllabus.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2019