LAHORE, June 19: The Higher Education Commission’s National Curriculum Revision Committee has revised the draft curriculum of BSc home economics and recommended that duration of the degree course should be increased from four to five years.

The committee also recommended that the MSc home economics curriculum should be upgraded and new specialized courses be introduced.

The committee also recommended to enhance the pass percentage marks for BSc and MSc home economics from 33 per cent to 40 per cent.

The NCRC recommended that the medium of instruction, especially at MSc level, should be English and if not possible, the government should ensure the availability of BSc and MSc level books in Urdu. The committee suggested that there should be at least 25 recommended books in Urdu for each subject.

The 33-member NCRC was convened by College of Home Economics, Lahore, principal Prof Matina Zia.

The committee made these recommendations after deliberations and critically analyzing the comments and suggestions of the experts received from different universities, colleges and institutions in a four-day meeting which concluded at the HEC regional centre here on Thursday.

College of Home Economics’ Dr Shahnaz Nazir acted as secretary to the committee, which comprised home economics experts from different universities, colleges and organizations from all over the country.

HEC regional centre director Muhammad Riaz Cheema supervised while HEC curricula division’s senior research officer Ms Ghayyur Fatima conducted the meeting and co-ordinated NCRC’s five sub-committees splitted to discuss BSc home economics disciplines — human development and family studies, management study and interior design, clothing and textile, home management and food and nutrition.

Besides recommending changes and upgradation of courses, the committees recommended to change the nomenclature of ‘Family relations and child development’ and ‘Home management’ departments as ‘Human and child development’ and ‘Management studies and interior designing’ departments, respectively. Both the departments are currently functional at the Government College of Home Economics, Karachi, and the University of AJ&K, Muzaffarabad, respectively.

Talking to Dawn, Prof Matina said the MSc courses had been revised for the first time and different specializations had been included to offer students maximum opportunities to learn about the expanding field of home economics.

She said the new courses related to management, interior designing, human development, family development, women issues, small businesses, fashion and textile designing.

She said more specialization choices as elective courses had also been recommended to be incorporated at BSc level.

Regarding the recommendation to make BSc course into five-year degree course, she said the enhanced period would help institutions to train students in a manner that they have a future vision as a professional.

Prof Matina said the NCRC had also recommended that due recognition needed to be given to the professional home economics specialists. It recommended that a faculty of home economics should be created in respective universities in the country to meet the needs and demands of family, community in particular and the modern world in general.

She said the home economics courses should be made integrated courses having affiliation with the universities instead of the boards of intermediate and secondary education.