The federal government’s announcement about the introduction of a single national curriculum (SNC) has several contours. Its critics say that it is not as easy or as simple to implement, as it appears on paper. They warn that the abrupt manner in which the transformation has been planned will definitely create problems.

There are many stakeholders in this context. They include private and public publishers, printers, teachers, teacher trainers, school owners and educationists. While the loudest of voices are being raised by those talking about the content, a debate is also afoot on how the adoption of the SNC will affect local businesses, create new jobs, provide earning opportunities to authors and educational content writers, create need for teacher training in both the government sector and the private sector and so on. Opinions vary widely in this regard.

Muhammad Shahid, a publisher based in Lahore, hopes for a sizeable boost in investment. He sees a huge surge in demand for text and reference books on account of inclusion of madrassa, private schools and public schools in the same scheme. Similarly, he says, there will be a need for more teachers as madrassa students too will now be taught this curriculum. At the moment a large number of madrassa students are getting religious education only.

Shahid says once madrassa students have the advantage of the same education as students of private and public educational institutions they will be able to apply for jobs in these institutions. This, he points out, is not the case today, as they only get jobs in mosques and madrassas. Even these opportunities are limited by sectarian differences.

The optimism is not shared by everyone. The skeptics say the decision has been taken in haste. Syed Qasim Abbas, the Urdu Bazaar Traders’ Association vice president, claims that by introducing SNC the government wants to convey the message to the world that it is monitoring the madrassa education. He says the monitoring of the sources of funding for the madrassas, a FATF requirement, will become possible once all 35,000 of them register themselves with the government.

Anyhow, he adds, the need to supply books according to the new curriculum will definitely create demand for paper, printing, ink, content development etc. Yet, he says, that businessmen will be conscious of the government’s track record. “What if the businesses invest billions into new books only for the government to take a U-turn and return to the old curriculum overnight?”

In support of his claim, he says, the only change he can see is the coverage of madrassas under this policy. Otherwise, he says, the students of private and public schools were already taking examinations under the same boards regardless of the books they were studying. Why, he asks rhetorically, has the government exempted the students of Cambridge International and International Baccalaureate systems from studying SNC? This, he says shows that it does not want to bridge the class divide and is only interested in window dressing.

Rai Manzoor Nasir, the former Punjab Textbook Board managing director, tells TNS that the board had started work on streamlining the curriculum and cleansing it of hatred and prejudice against different religious, sectarian and ethnic groups. Nasir says if he were assigned the task he would be able to complete it in six months. He says the stipulated period of three years is too long to be acceptable.

Nasir says curriculum development is a provincial subject after the 18th Amendment and the federal government will have to meet legislative obligations to tread into this territory. Sharing his experience, he says, his team had pointed out that certain Islamic teachings and incidents from Islamic history were part of curriculum subjects whether they be Islamiyat, English as a language, Urdu as a language or history. “We decided that we should put all these in one book and remove duplication. If this works out, he says, the Islamiyat book will be richer in content and there will be no need to put this content in books for other subjects.

Others believe that there will be investments coming in the telecommunications sector as 4G services are needed to teach SNC in remote parts of the country. They also argue that if the government changes the assessment system and discourages rote learning, teachers will have to be trained to promote conceptual learning. This will create opportunities for teacher training consultants in both the private and the public sectors. In the current system, students can cram their textbooks or get through guides and clear the exams. The practice of appearing as private candidates will also be discouraged and there will be more enrollment in schools which means more fee and more money.

Javed Iqbal, vice president of the Private Publishers’ Association of Pakistan comprising of around 170 members all over the country, says they have urged the government to defer the plan for some time as, their stocks worth billion are lying unsold due to the impacts of Covid-19. He says they will receive payments from distributors once these are sold off. If this doesn’t happen they will lose their investment and find themselves in financial perils.

Iqbal says once their payments are cleared, they can develop new books as per the requirements of the federal government. But the issue, he says, is that the federal government has not developed the model books which are the benchmark for the publishers to develop better ones. This has been the case for long, he adds.

Iqbal does not agree with the claim that government schools do not have funds. Their teachers are paid better salaries than most private school teachers (excluding Cambridge and IB stream ones). “They should be made to teach students using modern methods and must not be encouraged to come up with excuses”, he concludes.

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