Renaming the SNC

In a move that seems straight out of the PTI’s playbook, the coalition government has ignored all sane advice, repackaged the controversial Single National Curriculum (SNC) and presented it as the National Curriculum of Pakistan (NCP). When the PTI introduced the SNC, many educationists had cautioned against such an ill-thought-out step. The then ruling party, in its characteristic style of not listening to any feedback, still went ahead with it and spent precious time and money on a futile project. Now the PDM government’s Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Rana Tanveer Hussain is committing the same mistake. This step seems exactly like when the PTI government rebranded the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) as the Ehsaas programme. But, unlike the BISP, which is a praise-worthy social welfare programmes, the SNC created problems the moment it was introduced. And now we are back to square one: the education ministry has once again started training workshops – national curriculum workshops. The minister is promoting the NCP as the new name of ‘curriculum reforms’ which will be a ‘comprehensive exercise’ covering all aspects of curriculum including examinations, standards, textbooks and training.

As the government enthusiastically – and without much care for what experts say – goes ahead with its plans, it is forgetting one not-so-minor point: the federal government cannot possibly draft a ‘national’ curriculum since after the 18th Amendment, the subject of education has become the domain of provinces while the federal government is responsible for federal education, which means administering and managing all education institutions and matters that come under federal purview. The centre is also responsible for professional training, which means establishing new professional training institutes and improving the existing ones. This is a fairly neglected area that needs immediate attention. The past exercises of spearheading curriculum and examination reforms have produced little and unenviable results. The country already has the National Education Assessment System and the Provincial Education Assessment Cells.

The first step is to check what progress they have made at the federal level instead of moving headlong into a reform exercise that successive governments embarked with little to show on the ground. Another reason for Pakistan’s dismal literacy rate is the inability of successive governments to implement Article 25A of the constitution which says the state is responsible for providing education to every child. The main focus of the government should be on this area. The education ministry should develop a comprehensive policy for federal education and professional training instead of initiating curriculum and examination reforms. Embarking on ‘country-wide curriculum workshops’ is hardly advisable keeping in view the limited resources the ministry has at its disposal. Millions of out-of-school children need attention. An ill-designed ‘national’ curriculum will not help.