Sindh education department will start a drive against such private schools after Eid. PHOTO: AFP
Khuhro said that the drive will begin after Eidul Azha.
“We will cancel the registration of all such schools and impose penalty on them,” he said.
New syllabus
The Sindh education department has decided to reform the primary school syllabus in the province for the new academic year starting from March 2014.
According to a notification issued by the department, a 12-member committee under the supervision of Director Institute of Educational Development Aga Khan University Professor Muhammad Memon has been formed for this purpose.
Other members of the committee include Director Bureau of Curriculum Abdul Majeed Bhurt, former vice-chancellor of Shah Abdul latif University Khairpur Dr Nilofer Shaikh, University of Karachi’s sociology department teacher Dr Fateh Muhammad Burfat and University of Sindh’s Professor Parveen Muhshi.
Khuhro said the advisory committee will determine how to reform the existing syllabus.
“An outdated syllabus is being taught to our students and over the years, no one has changed it. On the committee’s recommendation, we will introduce a new syllabus by the next academic year,” he said adding that they would also introduce a Montessori school system in the province at par with private schools, enrolling three-year olds.
COMMENTS (61)
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@Oh really?: For your information Urdu is learnt by Sindhis as a compulsory subject. As to your apprehension that different languages create language barriers I will say that learning languages does not create barriers it mitigates them (I really don't know how you got that notion). However as history tells us that this fear of languages and diversity has created more barriers than anything else.
@Arzoo: Making Chinese compulsory is different and that's what I would call "enforcing" a foreign language. But Sindhi is native language of the Sindh province and should be learned by all those who are staying here and will stay for the long time. I would also like to say to those that say that it should not be forced that if Sindhi is not made compulsory no one will learn and skip it. In fact it is happening, Sindhi is an optional subject in HSC but no one takes it. So, yes it should be made compulsory from primary level as Urdu is compulsory. @drti: You must be very naive to consider "any" language useless.
@ModiFied: May God save us from that!
@Imran Niaizi: Would you say the same about Urdu? Yes, English is necessary but it does not mean that we throw our own languages to the dustbin.
Dont forget in 1970s ZA Bhutto ordered to make Sindhi as official language of Sindh, didnt work even when there was no MQM in 1970, simply its unreal to teach a language which is not a means of common communication, Urdu and English are common means of communication, PPP give up your deep rooted ethnicity.
In today's worlds market there is a need that every single Pakistani must know how to speak, read and write English language and the 15th old thoughts of learning regional languages have no importance.
For God sake come out of the cage and explore the world so that Pakistanis should benefit.
Sindhi is not at all an international language.
@drti: you mean that urdu is also not important we should only learn english please be sincere with your land with you country with your province, you eat rice, meat etc all come from land of Sindh, @SHARIQ: this is not stupid please be a educate person @ModiFied: you are not living in chine @Imran Niaizi: we are all love our own language sindhi is province language urdu is national language you don't respect your own language, you call to learn province, national language is backward. you should know there is nothing more our country our national our province. english is demand not responsibility but every nation every man has responsibility to learn own language, if you hate sindhi so you should change your province, sindhi is from thousand of year ago. sindhi is our language and you have not right to call learning our language is backward
Urdu is not the language of terrorists then why Nisar Khoro is bent upon changing the basic fabric of Karachiites?
There is difference of culture and the culture is adopted by a child in which family he or she is born.
When a child started speaking a language, he or she listens to the pronunciation of his parents, then the language from other family members of the family and then from the visitors of Mohallah and finally he goes to the School.
So the basic education of a child as far as language is concerned is completed before going to the School.
And if the child is asked to speak Sindhi language at School then he or she will neither be able to learn any language properly, neither Urdu, English or even Sindhi.
Nisar, who gave you this rubbish idea?
Its a foregone conclusion that a new province/federal territory will be created by separating Karachi and Hyderabad from Sindh very soon.
It is going to create a comical situation when kids will be forced to re-learn urdu and dump sindhi...that is going to be sooner than later......why bother then?
AND PLeeze spare me your hysterics about Sindh being your mother and centuries and civilizations.........you are only a wadera and thats all.
People of Karachi prefer to learn English language.
It would have been a great service of Education Minister Nisar Khoro if he would have asked the Government Schools to teach English language from Class 1, so that the children who are going to Government Schools where they are taught in Urdu language should have benefitted from English language as in Government and Private jobs, it is must to to know English, rather than Sindhi language.
Learning Sindhi language should be left as optional subject to any one who is interested in learning Sindhi language, but this should not be imposed on the majority of school going children.
The trend in the cities of Sindh Province is to learn English as a language after Urdu which is the primary language and mother tounge of majority of the people.
It is a matter as how people would like to communicate with each other and in which language.
We are not living in France where people despite knowing English do not speak English language.
It is not practically possible that a person whose is living in Karachi and whose mother tongue is Urdu cannot speak in Urdu language in the School, College or Univesity and is compelled to speak in Sindhi language, as Karachi is the Capitol of Sindh.
When a Sindhi speaking person can communicate in Urdu, why there is a need for Urdu speaking person to communicate in Sindhi language? Why it should be a must for him to communicate in Sindhi language, no matter if it is at primary school level?
Urdu language is very important in Electronic Media.
Being an anchor person, it is very important that one must know how to talk properly in Urdu language and with correct pronunciation.
If the Education Minister is thinking that by introducing Sindhi language, he is doing a good job, but I think that he is going to harm the future anchor person of media.
Right from the PTV being the State TV to all those Private TV Channels, except the regional languages TV Channels, Urdu plays a very important role in media communication.
ARY TV Channel belongs to Memon Group, but ARY is not represented on air by any Memoni speaking anchor person.
Let the Urdu play its role as national Language in Sindh as well as in Pakistan.
People in Karachi who are originally from Memon, Gujrati communities etc. cannot properly speak Urdu language, how come Nisar Khoro is asking the private schools to teach Sindhi language.
Let me remind to Nisar Khoro that Urdu is a national language of Pakistan.
This move means that Nisar Khoro wants that people of Karachi should prefer to speak a local language instead of national language?
Grow up people. Kids in other countries learn multiple languages and thrive. I totally support this move to promote regional language of the province, and would also like to propose that along with Urdu and English, Spanish or French should also be taught (at least in private so-called 'elite' schools that can have the resources to teach another international language).
The comments section perfectly illustrate "much ado for nothing." Listen people, Sindhi will be taught as ONE subject only. No one can lose by learning another language. And Sindi is an easy language to master so it won't take way much time from perfecting English or other subjects.
Some people posting are too clueless, like the guy complaining about how his metric results might be affected, or the guy asking for leniency on grading sindhi exams
"The Sindh education department has decided to reform the primary school syllabus in the province for the new academic year starting from March 2014"
Didn't realize primary school was such serious business.
@Abdullah: I'm guessing they teach french in France because it's their national language and not because its a provincial language they wish to preserve. And why not have these "Sindhis" learn Urdu and English which are the 2 official and National Languages of Pakistan Set by The Quaid? Why increase the sectarianism between the people of Pakistan that has been plaguing the country and holding them back by forcing them to learn different languages to create language barriers?. Students in Pakistan are already overburdened with more than 9 subjects which they dont really need but our society has such "high" standards that they are forced to take them and you want to make them forcefully learn it because of the sake of preserving it? Oh and by the sindh government you mean the PPP? i'm guessing they're still appealing to their boys back in interior
@Mohammad Ali Siddiqui:
Unfortunately most of the people are commenting without having idea of ground realities. I request you sir to go and visit, KWSB, KDA, Fire Bridage, all KMC hospitals in karachi, Civic Centre, Health Department and Home Department. I thing you will get better answer of your question easily. Why Sindhi should not be taugut at schools in the capital of the province. What is harm to it. Before the partition Sindhi was the officail language, not only this but British government used to penalised those who avoided communication in Sindhi. I agree with someone who talks to adopt Punjabi, but no other language is so rich as Sindhi is. Here i want to refer to recent studies conducted in UK where more than 70 per cent people living in the country are not willing to call themselves as British, but they perfered to recogansie themselve as English, Irish and scottish etc. All the world is trying to protect and promote the indeginous language and culture, but unfortunatly so called lilerate people specially on this website are opposing it. This is really unfortunate
All private schools particularly in Karachi must go on an indefinite strike until the Sindh Education Minister takes back his decision.
What is the use of learning Sindhi language for a Karachiite when in provincial governments jobs Karachiites will not be given similar status as of a Sindhi, who belongs to interior of Sindh under the quota system.
Nisar Khoro first flight against the quota system in the Sindh province and bring at par Karachiites with the Sindhis of interior of Sindh after abolishing the quota system from Karachi and then talk about teaching Sindhi language in Karachi, otherwise, it will remain a dream for him.
Excellent decision
i myself study in a school which does not teaches sindhi.Nothing will happen by saying only, actions are strictly required against those schools which do not teach in sindhi language.
Excellent decision by Government of Sindh to preserve sindhi. Similarly Punjabi need to be tought to all Punjabis.
@IceSoul - Actually your commet shows your narrow mindedness and like many, hatred towards Urdu. All languages are beautiful, Urdu was used before partition and it is a national language for a reason, Native languages are owned by many ethinicties, like Punjabi is owned by peopel of Punjab and Sindhi by peopel of Sindh, beauty of urdu is that is not owned by any specific ethincity, it is for all and has always been for all. It really does not belong to any specific group. You will find poets with having different mother tongues writing beautifully in urdu and they properly have moe ownership then any Urdu speaking person. I would suggest dont take your hatred towards particular ethincity by taking it on Urdu
Now coming to the plan of teaching Sindhi to people non-native speaker, I think it should be implemented but not by stick but give 5%-10% percent grace mark to Students so that they actually work hard to learn it and get some benefit in th end. It should be more to test speakeing power rather than just writing. Local langauges should be introduced right from the begining like from class three or 5 and in inter or college inroduce some other foreign language also. i am a SIndi bacause I was born in SIndh, and I probably love people of SInd more than many native SIndhsi, I try to help poor SIndhis as much as I can beside rest of the Pakistan. But the problem is rest of the Pakistan does want to accept me as SIndhi. Probablly this devision can be removed by teaching Sindhi properly to all. Btw many people who were settled in interior SIndh after partition did learn Sindhi and became fluent in it, it was (not So) sincere effort by Zulfiqar Bhutto and Mumtaz Bhutto that actually caused the division b/w the people of SInd.
Basic schooling should be in mother tongue. In Punjab too, Punjabi should be made compulsory in schools because its our mother tongue. Hypocrite Punjabi bureaucracy is the main hurdle in Punjab. They send their kids to English medium schools but propagate in favour of Urdu.
When you migrate to a place, you show courtesy by adopting their culture. However, in Pakistan, the rivers flow upstream. Our bureaucrats and military told us that urdu was the best language in the world, and promoted one language at the cost of diversity of other cultures. Result was that Punjab merrily let go it's language, when the Bengal was resisting. Once again the voices of descent come from the people of known ethnicities. Note that we didn't complain when you imposed your language upon us. Now you should reciprocate.
and in punjab, govt is replacing urdu with english!
Ridiculous. You are tying my future to the language that i will not use it once i am done with its final paper? meaning. if i fail in Sindhi by 1 marks..and my matric board mark sheet says Failed. only because of Sindhi? A language that is not even Official in my country?
You are allowed to give extra 10 or 20 marks to whomever takes sindhi as a subject, maybe he or she will do a research on Larkana not having english medium school.. or why bilawal speak like foreigner etc etc. But i want to be an engineer, which will need good grasp of language since most of the world research is done in English. But you are tying my future with Sindh. Shame on you.
It is about time the native language of the land is given the same rights as Urdu. Learning Sindhi will strenghtened our bound with the native population and open many oppertunties for both social and economic progress. Good move Sindh Government!
@Arzoo: The problem with Pakistanis are that they want everything ready, perfect and with a right of criticize free of cost.
No, it shouldn't be allowed.
Every province of Pakistan should make that law that native language(s) are compulsory to be taught in Public & private schools. (school level / Matric / A level )
The citizenry must learn at least the grasp of the native language(s).
Urdu is a natural language, one has to speak in Urdu if one has to communicate with the one of the non native speaker i.e a Sindhi person can not speak Pushto and a Pushton cant speak Sindhi, so they both naturally communicate in Urdu (although their Urdu may sound not very crisp).
I am not a Sindhi speaker by birth. But now, I realize that had it been not the Sindhi Compulsory in my School days, I can not even understand the words let alone understand little bit what I learned in School. And I couldn't care less If Bilawal speaks Sindhi or Greek or even say anything at all.
.....nothing wrong if learn Chinese / Japanese / Turkish. we spent umpteen hours learning English, now lets try a different taste then......why not....but it is upto individual.
.........and yes of-course we need to overhaul the syllabus as well.
regards.
I am Urdu speaking, native of Karachi. I have studied in Federal board and do not know Sindhi.
I support this decision of the Sindh government. Sindhi should be learnt by all those who live in Sindh.
Learning a language is no shame. Many in West Pakistan before 1971 partition thought of learning Bengali as a waste of time. This attitude causes divisions. For e.g., there are many Sindhi media channels that do not reflect the view of the urban Karachiite and vice versa. This divide needs to be filled.
However, this move seems to be more cosmetic than substantial. There should have been many preceding moves such as revitalizing ghost schools, making syllabus more modern and close to facts, cheap access to schooling and education all over the province.
I'm going to try to say this again. ET has been censoring my comments for no reason. This fine only means ministers will want more bribes. I'm in the education business in Sind and this has been happening since 2008.
Also, a newspaper that claims to be of international caliber should at least get the new spelling of Sind right.
New drama from PPP to play with emotions of Sindhis and to extort money from private schools nothing else
many politicians children dont even study in pakistan as they are sent abroad for better education and here forcing others for it.
I'd rather the government do something that's productive than something like this. Anyways, as for the decision at hand, it shall be upon the student whether to opt for Sindhi or not. Like one of the comments already suggested, one shouldn't force his/her beliefs on another person.
@Citizen Kane: Beautiful thought from you. I am in the same boat as you, but have a little different point of view. This is not the way to promote Sindhi, the language of love and spirituality. Pakistanis live, to earn a livelihood, in the Arab countries for decades sometimes. And, despite their professed love for the language of their religion, they do not or are not able to learn Arabic. In most instances, neither do their children, many of them born in those Arab countries. Reason is: you cannot force a populace to learn a language by making laws, and specially unnatural laws, that a government is totally unable to enforce.
In any case, Mr. Khuhro's intentions are sincere, though unpractical, and unenforceable, and will never see the light of day. Bear in mind that just last year the PPP government, while President Zardari was on a state visit to China, declared its' intention to make Chinese compulsory all over Pakistan. Only if horses could fly .....................
Yes only acceptable after we hear Bilawal give a speech in it.
How about if citizens start penalizing the MNA's in the sitting govt for consistently failing to provide basic necessities to the inhabitants of the city. When will we see that?
no one should force their religion or culture on others :P
Hey i have suggestion, why not have these little kids forced to look up at a dead bhuttos picture and have bija teer bija played instead of the national anthem?
Why not teach something productive on basis of which the person could get a job... like Chinese or Arabic
And what about the Govt schools who do not teach .... ANYTHING ?
regional language shud b taught but as option not a compulsory subject
Your comment reflects your positive attitude, thumbs up for that :) Learning the Sindhi language itself will break down all barriers between all the different ethnic groups that reside in Sindh.
Bad move. Forcing everyone to learn Sindhi is a waste of time and money. Why should student's learn useless things? There is a lot of things that are worth learning and Sindhi is not one of them. The ironic part is that they go on about obsolete syllabi while also talking about enforcing this ridiculous edict of theirs.
@AR: Now you want 24yrs old man to study in primary school,Whats wrong with Sindh government making sure that their language must be taught in their land.When you are in France they will teach you French likewise when you are in Sindh you will be taught Sindhi if you dont like it leave it.
Karachi wala have to study and the Sindh wala will got the degree whether real or fake and the job. What a province. Baloch wake up for your language too as you are the real owner of Karachi for thousands of years.
I'm a karachiite and this decision is ridiculous! Sindhi should only be taught to those who want to
what a stupidity, looters wants to make more money
What happened to compulsory Chinese teaching in Sindh schools?
When whole world is learning English. These guys want us to learn Sindhi Where r we going another step backward.
Excellent step. This will unite the province even more. Native Sindhi learned Urdu (which was a foreign language for them) and now New Sindhis will reciprocate.
Our homes are one. Our future is together.
Excellent idea >>>> all non-Sindhis should be conversant with SINDHI language and culture.
But it may not be practical to * force * people to learn a language. Encourage, yes ; compell, No.
Should the school make SINDHI compulsory, most students will only learn to pass an exam with the bare minimum of marks.
What is dificult about Sindhi ? can anyone guide me /
And what about the ghost schools, will you close them as well ?
good decision but acceptable only if Bilawal Zardari also studies here.....
I'm not a Sindhi but I support this step. This is Sindh and was Sindh for thousands of years before Pakistan. Since Karachi attracts thousands of non-Sindhis every month, it is essential to teach Sindhi to the "new Sindhis" so as to preserve the ancient language of this land.