Implementation of uniform curriculum from new academic year

KARACHI: Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood has said that implementation of a uniform curriculum in the country will begin from the new academic year.

Speaking at a summit here on Wednesday, Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood said that there was no ambiguity on the issue of newly-unveiled Karachi Development Package of the federal government and the package should be implemented hundred per cent.

He said the government would not do any compromise on the health of schoolgoing children during the ongoing coronavirus epidemic.

He said the government would introduce a uniform system of education in the country to do away with multiple systems of learning being in vogue in the country. The government-run education system had been ignored in the past 70 years and there would be further deterioration in the system if we continued with multiple learning systems. He said the government would launch a special programme to enrol out-of-school children in the country.

The medium of radio would be used to teach the students of Class one to five.

He said the inter-provincial meeting of education ministers would be held in Islamabad on 23rd November to take a decision regarding closure of educational institutions in the country due to Covid-19 emergency.

The education minister said the government had been providing funds to the tune of Rs100 billion to the public sector universities of the country. He acknowledged that the Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani had been rectifying the issues of education system in Sindh.

He said the academic curricula had been slashed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. A number of subjects had been devolved to the provinces by the Centre following the 18th Constitutional Amendment. The role of the federal government had become limited in tackling a number of important issues, including food security. He said that reforms had to be introduced in the system of civil service as senior government officials had been drawing heavy salaries as compared to the people employed by the private sector. He said the population bulge of the country had to be managed in a beneficial manner for good of the country. Illiteracy was a major challenge for the government while reforms should also be introduced to improve the justice system.

He said that problems of masses could not be resolved without empowering the system of local government and for this purpose the draft of a new municipal system was being finalized by the government.