KARACHI:
Imran Khan announced the introduction of the Single National Curriculum (SNC) to end inequalities in the Pakistani education system. The SNC will be implemented in three phases. It will attempt to provide fair and equal opportunities to all students, regardless of their socio-economic background.
However, the SNC has received heavy criticism from educationists across the country. They have argued that this initiative contradicts the 18th amendment, which empowers all provinces to make educational policies and adapt them according to their regional needs. As an educationist, I believe that the government can work on improving the existing education system instead of launching an entirely new curriculum. The government should have invested more in trying to bring the 2.5 million out-of-school children back to school. Provision of technical and vocational education should have been prioritised. Teacher training programmes should have been introduced. Another flaw of the new curriculum is that the coursebooks are written by similar authors, which reduces diversity of ideas. The SNC also does not offer separate plans for minorities or children of other faiths, forcing them to follow the same religious content that is taught to Muslim students. This contravenes against Article 22 of the constitution. Moreover, architects of this new curriculum have focused on quantity instead of quality further burdening the students who will now be forced to “rote learn” in much more detail.
The government can address these concerns by working on the structural shortcomings of the SNC. Choices of subjects should be given at all levels for minorities and teachers must be professionally trained. Only with these moderations will the SNC be effective. It is imperative that the government increases the budget allocated to the education sector.
Waseem Shabbir
Gujranwala
Published in The Express Tribune, August 25th, 2021.
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