THE Single National Curriculum (SNC) may be a step towards improving education standards. However, as a parent, I feel this is a recipe for disaster and is bound to fail. The SNC will be catastrophic for private-school students who have studied their subjects in the English language all their academic lives and are now being forced to convert to the Urdu language.

Indeed, Urdu is national language, and we must have education reforms, and all children should have equal opportunity of education. But I feel this change will be unfair to students who have already covered the core subjects and are being forced to lower their standards.

My son is now in class II. I have seen the SNC mathematics and English books. And what I felt was not happiness. My son learnt in pre-school what has been prescribed under SNC for class II. He has already learnt the tables up to 12, and he knows two-digit addition and subtraction. Similarly, his English language skills are much higher than what the SNC has prescribed.

My suggestion to the authorities concerned is to implement such changes step-by-step. Instead of punishing the children of private schools by downgrading their education standards, the government should try to upgrade the level of education of the public schools. It is still not too late to revisit the SNC as the academic year has just begun and we can save our children from a disaster.

Muzafar Ul Haq
Lahore

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2021