SHC directs education boards to upgrade syllabi from 2020 onwards

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has directed all the boards of education in the province to ensure that the intermediate and secondary schools education syllabi, which have been unchanged for many years, is revised in a way similar to that done by Punjab and the Aga Khan University examination board.

Hearing a case pertaining to the examination system and copy culture in the province, a single bench of the SHC comprising Justice Salahuddin Panhwar observed that the Sindh government’s actions had changed the original idea of “education for all” into a regrettable fact that “better education is for riches only.”

The high court observed that a major difference between public and private education system is undeniably curriculum and way of delivery thereof. The bench observed that all the education curricula must be of equal standards and the people of Sindh did have right to have education of international or at least national level so as to compete fairly in the modern era.

The SHC directed all the boards of education to ensure upgrade of education syllabus of the intermediate and secondary education from 2020 onwards on the same line as did by Punjab and the Aga Khan University examination board and submit a compliance report.

The high court was informed by the Sukkur Institute of Business Administration registrar that despite a federal policy with regard to the 2006 curriculum, the education departments of Sindh had not applied the same whereas the 2006 policy was being implemented in all the other provinces.

The SHC directed the chief secretary to constitute a high-level committee under the chairmanship of the Sukkur IBA vice chancellor comprising the educational boards’ chairmen, a Sindh Textbook Board representative, the vice chancellors of the Karachi, Khairpur and Sindh universities, and other officers concerned to ensure that the policy shall be applied from the year 2020 onwards.

The high court observed that since the curriculum policy and publication of books relates to the Sindh Textbook Board and the director curriculum; therefore, the head of the textbook board and the director curriculum shall ensure that books are available as per curriculum and as per the standard of curriculum policy 2006.

The Sukkur IBA registrar submitted recommendations and suggestions for improvement of examination system and academic quality of boards of intermediate and secondary education.

The high court observed that suggestions prima facie are result of appreciable efforts which directly relates to the issue of cheating in annual examination. The bench directed the office to communicate the recommendations to all examination boards with direction to consider the same for enforcement in its letter and spirit or shall come forward with better proposals.

The high court directed all the chairmen of educational boards to sit together and submit their policy to eliminate cheating in examination and such proposals shall be submitted by December 11.

The SHC also directed the boards of examination and universities secretary to submit complete prevailing mechanism with regard to criteria of amount specified for invigilation and expenses occurred on examinations in the last two years in the province. The high court issued notices to the chairmen of education boards of Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur, Larkana and Nawabshah, as well as the secretaries of school and college education to provide complete details and mechanism in this regard.