KARACHI: “The religious minority’s demand for a curriculum was genuine,” said Federal Minister for Education Rana Tanveer Hussain while commending the National Curriculum Council of Pakistan for coming up with religious education courses for as many as seven minority faiths.

He was speaking at National Curriculum of Pakistan (NCP) Sindh launch organised by the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training in collaboration with government of Sindh at a hotel here on Thursday.

The government of Sindh is adopting the NCP for English, science, mathematics, computer science and religious education for minority faiths. Furthermore, the School Education and Literacy Department (SELD) and the National Curriculum Council (NCC) secretariat are developing a robust Teacher Professional Development Programme contextualised to the needs of the teachers in rural, multilingual and low resource settings in Sindh.

The minister said that soon after getting the Education portfolio, he changed the name ‘Single National Curriculum of Pakistan’. “The word ‘single’ was making it sound too limiting, like a martial law. So I issued a notification to have it changed to just ‘National Curriculum of Pakistan’,” he explained, while also airing his displeasure over how the curriculum was dragged for five to six years without anything being done about it.

Rana Tanveer claims ‘fascist mindset’ of PTI leaders delayed introduction of courses

“The idea of a national curriculum was conceived in 2009. Then the National Action Plan after the Army Public School attack had the government rethinking madressaheducation. But then things slowed down after formation of a new government in 2018,” he said, adding the slowdown was due to a “fascist mindset” like that of his predecessor Shafqat Mahmood or his leader.

“We need to work in the spirit of the 18th Amendment. We appreciate Sindh. We support Sindh. We will not force anything on Sindh. We will work together. Our only challenge is that due to floods, our education system is affected. The schools are damaged, children are out of school making the already out-of-school children’s number go up. We need to work on a war footing,” he said, adding that since he wanted to work with professional people he continued with most of them, including Dr Mariam Chughtai, the National Curriculum Council of Pakistan director.

Speaking on the occasion, Sindh Minister for Education, Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities and Archives Syed Sardar Ali Shah shared the difficulties he faced in getting the previous federal minister for education understand his viewpoint. “I was working for education according to Pakistan’s Constitution. I reminded Shahfqat Mahmood that uniform education was also a part of his leader Imran Khan’s party manifesto, reminding him of federal government’s role of supporting the provinces and working in coordination with them.

“I asked him to set core standards for four subjects with education in all our schools to be such that if a student from Sindh moves to the Punjab, he or she should not feel out of place. But Shafqat Mahmood didn’t quite get understand,” said Sardar Shah.

“We want our children to learn about their roots. They should be taught in their mother tongue about their history, their culture, about Shah Latif, about Rahman Baba and others who enlightened others. We want to make an inclusive society. And I’m so glad that Rana Tanveer’s viewpoint is the same as ours,” he said.

He said he was all for the teachers’ development programme introduced by the NCC. “Curriculum developers should be like honey bees, sucking nectar from different flowers to make honey. For this Sindh has got 60,000 new teachers on merit,” he said.

He also said that the NCP was a big thing for religious minorities. “Religious education will be imparted here according to the context of Jinnah’s famous speech. After all, why should Muslim children be studying Islamiat and non-Muslim children ethics instead of the teachings of their own faith?”

Earlier, Dr Fouzia Khan, the head of the curriculum wing, and additional director for Early Childhood Care and Education, with the School of Education and Literacy Department, said that Sindh was the first province to think about integration of 21st century learning skills in the curriculum, which is appreciated not just locally but internationally, as well.

National Curriculum Council of Pakistan director Dr Mariam Chughtai explained the problem that initially got them thinking about a national curriculum years ago. “Private schools were not teaching standard Urdu or Islamiat; government schools were teaching all subjects but had no standards; and madressah children were not being taught mathematics and science. It was clear that they were all in need of one standard curriculum,” she said.

“The credit goes to the lawmakers and politicians who made the national curriculum possible and gave education the importance that it deserves,” she concluded.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2022