In a meeting, Minister for Sindh Education and Literacy Department (SELD) Syed Sardar Ali Shah and Director of National Curriculum Council (NCC) Mariam Chughtai agreed that Sindh and NCC would jointly develop curriculum for some subjects.
Three initiatives were approved. Firstly, the National Curriculum core standards for four subjects — English, Math, Science, Computer Science – were finalized. Secondly, a partnership between Sindh Education Ministry and NCC Secretariat on Teacher Professional Development was approved for public school teachers. Lastly, the meeting also saw the adoption of standards for seven religious minorities and their textbooks — namely Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Baha’i, Buddhism, and Kalasha.
On this occasion, Sindh Provincial Education Minister said that we are happy that our stand on curriculum has been recognized by the federation. The recognition of provinces is a symbol of national unity, which the previous government tried to influence in the name of Single Nation Curriculum. Addressing the meeting on this occasion, Education Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah said that efforts are being made to ensure that any behavior promoting violence or intolerance and extremism in the society will not be made part of the textbooks and such behaviors would be discouraged.
Experts from Directorate of Curriculum and Research (DCAR) Government of Sindh remained an active part of the development of standards and later review of the textbooks. Their valuable input helped develop standards and textbooks as per the required standards. Finalized standards for Grades ECE-8 for English, General Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science will be reviewed for adoption in Sindh.
The Sindh Education Ministry and NCC Secretariat will partner to implement Teacher Professional Development Project in select districts of Sindh. This will help NCC model similar trainings for other provinces.
For the first time, a separate curriculum for seven religious minorities: Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Baha’i, Kalasha, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism has been developed with consensus of concerned religious groups. The government of Sindh will adopt the standards and facilitate the review of textbooks on this curriculum.
These decisions will be formally announced in a joint press briefing in Karachi in the next few days. Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training (MoFEPT) Rana Tanvir Hussain and Minister for Education Sindh Syed Sardar Shah will address the press conference.
