Quran publishers say PCTB decision to cause them financial loss

LAHORE: Quran Publishers Association of Pakistan has condemned the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) for its decision not to print the Quran siparas and provide them free of cost to students of class 1 to 12 while textbooks will be printed and be provided free of cost to them.

Addressing a meeting, association president Qudratullah, Chairman Syed Ahsan Mahmood Shah, Patron-in-Chief Hafeezul Barkaat Shah and others demanded that the decision be withdrawn immediately as it would also bring serious financial hardships to publishers of Quran who would not get any order of printing in the coming academic year. They said after decades’ long struggle the teaching of Quran and translation was made compulsory subject for Muslim students from class 1 to 12 and few years back the Punjab government also passed the “Compulsory Teaching of the Quran Act 2018” in this regard.

In the light of this decision, they said, the PCTB had not only declared teaching of Nazra Quran with translation a compulsory subject for sixth to twelfth grades but also got published the Quran siparas for free distribution to the students last year.

They lamented that just after one year, the PCTB discontinued publishing and providing free Quran siparas to students on the request of the School Education Department citing the excuse of lack of funds in the violation of the legislation of federal and Punjab government. They said the PCTB has continued to fund the publishing and providing free the textbooks of Urdu, science and mathematics, but only stopped publishing Quran siparas which is a serious digression from the Constitution and ideology of the country.