Cognitive potential of youth stressed

Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday underlined the need to thrash out a plan to devise a new and comprehensive curriculum with a focus on unlocking the cognitive potential of young minds to cope with the challenges of the 21st century.

Addressing a roundtable conference on “inclusive national curriculum”, organized by the Ministry of Planning Commission here, the minister said that all the public sector universities and education institutions and leading private schools have the potential to promote education, however, there was a dire need to develop a unanimous curriculum so that all and sundry can own it.

He said that the curriculum should lead to producing creative and analytical minds and encourage critical thinking to produce scientists and scholars par excellence.

He said that in this era of the knowledge economy, intellectual capital and brain power determined the future of nations.

The minister deplored that currently, “we have ignored epistemology — observation and reasoning — which is the core of education and knowledge.

He said that the existing educational system did not encourage observation and reasoning and even teachers discourage students to ask questions in classrooms.

He said that scholars like Ibn-e-Sina, Ibn-e-Rushd and Al-Khwarizmi etc were the product of reasoning and critical thinking. He said that had there been the Nobel prize at that time, over 70 per cent of the laurels would have gone to Muslim intellectuals and scientists.

He said there was a need to promote education that leads to creativity and innovation.

Ahsan Iqbal said that the examination system also needed reforms.

Meanwhile, the minister urged the federal education ministry to forward proposals for establishing a state-of-the-art teachers’ training centre in Islamabad.

He asked the federal education minister to submit a project concept (PC-I) for setting up the teachers’ training institute in the capital.

The roundtable was attended by education experts who shared ideas to make the curriculum more inclusive.

“The planning commission will give you a budget for the teachers’ training institute in ICT which is the dire need of the hour,” Ahsan Iqbal told the education minister.

He said that curriculum reforms were badly needed because growth and innovation in education leads to progress.

He said that education should be a core agenda to take Pakistan on the trajectory of economic development.

The minister said that the national curriculum reforms was launched under Vision 2025 and the National Curriculum Council was also established.

However, he said, that the previous government made the reforms agenda ‘controversial’.

Ahsan Iqbal said that four important things — curriculum reforms, teachers’ training, examination and Madrassa reforms — were needed to be addressed immediately.

He said that the four components were part of Vision 2025 when it was launched in 2014. He said that the initiative could not be implemented fully.

He said that after the devolution of education under the 18th Amendment, efforts were made to structure an inter-provincial educational forum and a national curriculum council to address the imbalances in various boards of education.

He reiterated that the planning ministry would extend all support to create a curriculum with a focus on reforms in the whole education system.

The minister emphasized that children must be able to conduct self-evaluation so that they make the right choices as a result of the updated curriculum.

He said that there should be a consensus on developing a unanimous curriculum focusing personality and intellectual development of students.

Ahsan Iqbal said questioning and critical thinking should not be discouraged as it leads to the death of creativity and innovation.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2023.