ISLAMABAD: The education ministry on Friday notified a 10-member supervisory committee of experts to provide guidance to ensure that the ongoing curriculum renewal process meets necessary requirements.

“The committee will provide overall guidance to ensure that curriculum renewal process adheres to the necessary requirements i.e academic standards, student needs according to age and grade level and international trends,” read a notification issued on Friday.

The committee is tasked to review curriculum documents and advise about their accuracy, consistency and relevance. It will also advise about the continuity of knowledge and skills across grades K-12 in the curriculum documents.

Experts to ensure curriculum renewal process adheres to international trends, says notification

The experts will also suggest programme areas that should be included or excluded from the curriculum.

The federal government in collaboration with provinces has already developed a single National Curriculum (SNC) for class one to five, which will be implemented in the upcoming academic session to start in August. However, sources in the education ministry said Sindh was not fully convinced and might refuse to adopt the SNC.

Last month, Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani had told Dawn that his province already had an advanced curriculum compared to other provinces so it was not going to adopt the SNC, hinting that if need arises the provincial government will get an input from SNC.

The sources said all provinces had been requested to get the textbooks of 1 to V classes published in accordance with the SNC.

“We have requested all provinces, so now it is up to them to get the books published. The PTI and its allies are in government at the centre, in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan so there will be no issue in implementation of the SNC there. Our talks with Sindh are also in progress,” said an officer of the federal education ministry. He said the SNC will be introduced in all public and private schools and seminaries.

After launching the SNC at the primary level this year, the government is planning to launch a uniform curriculum from class six to eight next year and from class nine to 12 from 2023.

The committee will mainly supervise the curriculum from class six to 12 as for the primary level the curriculum is already finalised.

“The committee will play supervisory role mainly on curriculum being developed by experts under the National Curriculum Council (NCC) for class six to eight and then from class nine to 12,” said an official of the ministry.

The 10-member experts notified for the committee are: Dr Syed Khurshid Hasnain from Quaid-i-Azam University, Dr Irfanullah Chaudhry from University of Engineering Lahore, Afia Salaam, expert on climate change, geography and environment, Dr Mohammad Mustafa from FC College Lahore, Dr Sabieh Anwar from Lums, Dr Fatima Zia Dar from Centre for Teaching Excellence and Learning Innovation, Asia University Malaysia, Dr Irfan Muzaffar from Columbia University, Prof Dr Meraj Mustafa Hashmi from Nust, Dr Sajida Zaki from NED University of Engineering and Technology Karachi and Dr Habibullah Pathan from Jamshoro University.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2021