The Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training on Tuesday rejected a concerted campaign that has been started by vested groups to discredit the remarkable effort made by the Government to devise a Single National Curriculum (SNC) for all schools in Pakistan.
While responding to some of the falsehoods being spread, such as SNC discriminates against minorities, the Education Ministry in a statement clarified that an Ulema Board has decreed that all human figures in Biology textbooks of the SNC be covered with appropriate clothes to protect their modesty.
Single National Curriculum has so far only been approved till grade V. Biology is a subject that is taught in beginning from Grade IX and no textbooks for Biology have so far been finalized, it added.
The federal government’s approval process for Science textbooks does not involve any consultation with the Muttahida Ulema Board and so any claim that the Board has prohibited the inclusion of any diagrams or educational material from the Biology textbooks is factually inaccurate.
Science textbooks are being developed in close consultation with renowned local and international experts and will not be approved for publishing until it is determined that they meet the required global benchmarks, the ministry elaborated.
It is, however, true that the Punjab Assembly has approved a law whereby an Ulema Board approves all Islamic content in the curriculum. Punjab Government has informed the Federal Ministry that no change was made in the Biology textbooks by the said Board.
The statement, while rejecting another untruth, clarified that no order has been made by the government at any level that Qaris from madressa’s would be appointed in all schools, public and private, to teach the Holy Quran.
The teaching of Qirat to Muslim students is a part of the Islamiyat curriculum and is mandatory to foster their religious learning. This instruction can be provided by the existing Islamiat or Religious Studies teachers or the school can hire anyone they deem fit.
This does not preclude anyone including graduates of madrassas but the decision of who to hire is of the individual school whether public or private and not of the Federal Government.
