On Monday, the National Curriculum Council (NCC) decided unanimously to amend the Single National Curriculum that had already been drawn up, so that provinces could teach different mother languages to school children.
The draft of the Single National Curriculum completely ignored the mother languages, which made various stakeholders and members of different cultural groups more reserved.
Advisor Javed Jabbar, Minister of Federal Education, has called a meeting of all stakeholders to address reservations on the exclusion of such languages from the national curriculum.
Members from Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Gilgit-Baltistan attended the meeting held at the Secretariat of the NCC in Islamabad. The meeting was also attended by members of the Aga Khan Foundation, the Beaconhouse Group and LUMS. But Sindh and Punjab representatives were absent.
Previously, the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training technical experts recommended that English be the means of education for all pre-I to XII grades students. They also proposed the introduction in English of grades I of technical subjects such as science and mathematics, so that students could learn it easily.
According to Javed Jabbar, both parties concerned expressed their reservations about the first draft of the Single National Curriculum during the meeting. Meeting attendants agreed unanimously that the proposed national curriculum should be revised and determined that the provinces should provide students withpre-Ito V languages in their mother tongues.
Javed Jabbar claimed that the reservations are all resolved and provinces are allowed into their respective curricula to include their mother tongues. Before the end of the week, the NCC will receive the revised draft of the Single National Curriculum.
Therefore, the meeting agreed that Islamiat would extend its reach with chapters on various religions. The leader in the meeting Peter Jacob welcomed the move to promote social inclusion. Another member, Amjad Saleem Minhas, appreciated the decision of the NCC to study and encourage the provinces in teaching mother languages to their students.
