KARACHI, Feb 11: The Sindh government has chalked out a plan to introduce drastic changes in the existing system of preparing textbooks from next year, according to which contents of the curriculum approved by the federal government will be made public through the press and writers will be invited to send their works.

The government will examine all the entries and select those found up to the mark for publication of three books for each subject and the schools will be asked to chose any of these three books for teaching in the institution.

The schools would also be provide with supplementary material on related subjects for reading.

This was stated by provincial education minister Prof Anita Ghulam Ali in a meeting with a five-member IMF delegation a couple of days back.

She said the government had decided to end monopoly of the Sindh Textbook Board so as to provide quality books to the educational institutions. These books would also be published through the private sector publishers of repute.

“Curriculum is prepared and approved at the federal level and sent to the provinces, however the provincial authorities may incorporate some changes in it,” she said.

As regards to the regulation of the privately-managed educational institutions, the minister said the provincial government had promulgated an ordinance in this regard and was also considering extending financial assistance to the private schools. For this purpose, a proposal to create a fund of Rs5 million in the budget had been sent to the governor for approval, she added, saying that small private schools facing financial problems would be released grants from the fund.

“A proposal is under consideration to curtail the number of annual casual leave for teachers from 25 to 12 as the educational institutions enjoy maximum holidays, besides teachers were availing more and more leaves which affect the education process”, the minister added.

Moreover, she said, in most of the schools, duration of periods was only 30 minutes and on Fridays the morning shift was only for one and half an hour.

“We took note of it and asked the City Nazim to issue notice to the EDO Education in this regard,” she told the mission.

Apprising the IMF mission of Education for All scheme of the government, Prof Anita said the Sindh Compulsory Primary Education Ordinance had been promulgated and under a plan initially one taluka in each district would be selected for free and compulsory education.

Later, other talukas would be covered in phases during the next ten years. The government has also planned to have only female teachers at primary level and brushed aside the impression that no educated male or female teachers were available in the rural areas.

Provincial Secretary Education Nazar Hussain Mahar informed the meeting that 3,500 schools in Tharparkar district were either shelterless or one-roomed while the number of schools with five rooms was only five. He suggested that provision of zakat or other grants related to poverty alleviation should be linked to compulsory admission of children by the poor parents.—PPI