By now the Single National Curriculum (SNC) is a reality, implemented for Grades Pre-1 to 5 with the distribution of model textbooks for the teaching of every subject. It was obvious as soon as early drafts became available that the textbooks were beset with problems. But concerns of independent analysts were dismissed as being selective and not fully appreciative of the many positives that made them “as good as any” in the world. In response to the selectiveness charge, I undertook and completed page-by-page reviews, now available as an e-book, of the three Pre-1 primers for mathematics, English and Urdu. I had intended to review textbooks for all grades but stopped because it really doesn’t matter how brilliant a job one does in the higher grades if the foundation is so weak.

The three primers are full of gems, funnier than any TV show, and I urge readers to buy them (for a total investment of Rs 300) or to browse the e-book for just Rs 100. It would be hard to find more entertaining material, which could also break your heart, if you have one in your chest.

Start with the mathematics primer, which seems written by bad Urdu poets smitten by rhyme. Everything rhymes whether it makes sense or not. Take the verse introducing five-year-olds to the number 4: “Four friends who are very tall / Together they achieve it all / Day and night they worked hard / Success of Pakistan is their yard.” Tall, all, hard, yard! Okay, I get it. Does it matter that it means nothing at all, and also hurts short people who are just as patriotic?

The numbers 1 to 50 are introduced to be endlessly copied and memorised as unique numbers. There is no concept of the digit zero which is introduced in the following tautological manner: “Zero means nothing at all / That’s why zero it’s called”, after which it is ignored. Nothing about how, if it means nothing at all, putting it next to a solitary 1 makes that a whole lot bigger. Nothing that the word zero actually derives from sifr or that the concept was invented right here in our backyard.

The English primer continues the high-flown poetry exercises often stretching to extreme limits to achieve the perfect rhyme. Here is how the letter L is introduced: “l” letter, “l” letter, leaf, leaf, leaf / “l” letter, “l” letter, eat some beaf (sic).” Leaf goes perfectly with ‘beaf’, doesn’t it? The alphabet is introduced with no discussion of upper- and lower-case letters. The teacher is instructed to introduce the letter “Aa” with phonic sound.

The incongruity of Urdu primer can only be appreciated by seeing it.

The national language is introduced to five-year-olds conveying the subliminal message that it does not even have words for “Pre-I” or “primer” and the issuing authority has not bothered to acquire a local name. I will skip the rhymes and the stories, unsurprisingly at par with those in the other primers given that all three are authored by the same experts.

On top of pedagogically poor textbooks is an astounding feature: most Pre-I students are being simultaneously introduced to three foreign languages, maths, English, and Urdu, and they are being taught a foreign language (maths) in another foreign language (English) while throwing away all the intuition children bring on the subject from their home language. Imagine a child and a teacher in a village in Gwadar district going over these lessons with a textbook in English between them.

This absurdity of teaching one foreign language in another probably has no global parallel. In an old book (Bazm Ara’iiyaN, 1980), Muhammad Khan narrates the following incident in Urdu (my translation): “A few years ago, a renowned expert in education came here from England. When we had finished showing him an English-medium school, we asked, with considerable pride, for his opinion. His opinion is worth hearing. He said: “Well, your courage is to be commended that you educate your children through a foreign language. If, in England, I recommended teaching English children in Urdu, I would surely have to spend the next night in some lunatic asylum. You are really very brave.”” (Substituting any other language for Urdu does not affect the argument.)

After narrating this interaction, the author adds the following comment: “God only knows what word was in the Englishman’s mind in whose place he used ‘brave’.”

The entire SNC is a mishmash, and a bad one at that. The prime minister says we have been enslaved by English. The Punjab minister of education claims he wanted to teach everything in Urdu but had to bow to the fears of the Centre that we would be left behind if we abandoned English. Parents will receive a very poor return on their investment in the education of their children and ought to take notice.

At the end of the review, I could only wonder how someone could make such a complete mess of what is the most critical intervention in the lives of our children. Governments, no matter how well-intentioned, can actually do harmful things. I am sure the Taliban want the best for Afghanistan, and think that that can be achieved by not letting girls go to school. I would dearly like to know what is going through the minds of our rulers that has resulted in the SNC — the primers convince me that the aim is to produce an obedient citizenry at the cost of an educated one. Perhaps the Rehmatul-lil-Aalameen Authority to “be charged with monitoring the schools’ curriculum” will be able to elaborate.

At the end of the review, I could only wonder how someone could make such a complete mess of what is the most critical intervention in the lives of our children.

Very few are raising their voices to challenge this intervention but we ignore the lasting impact of a curriculum at our own peril. Here is what the minister for information is reported to have said recently (Dawn, June 13, 2021): “In the 1960s and ’70s, Pakistan was a progressive society but in the 1980s a syllabus was made in Nebraska University for madrassahs in Pakistan. It was part of the plan by the CIA for the Great War in Afghanistan. It was a deep political strategy to make Pakistan conservative... as a result of that mess a big chunk of our population became militarised. Gradually, our liberal society moved towards extremism. When you opt for extremism, your ideas don’t remain forward-looking.”

Every primer, from Pre-I to Grade 5, carries on its inside cover this statement of the Quaid-i- Azam: “Education is a matter of life and death for Pakistan. The world is progressing so rapidly that without requisite advance in education, not only shall we be left behind others but may be wiped out altogether.” Were he to be here, I wonder if he would consider the SNC an advance or a retreat, a sign of revival or a sentence of death?

The author is a former dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at LUMS. He is the author of Single National Curriculum: Page-by-Page Review of Pre-I Model Textbooks, Plain Tales About Early Childhood Education in Pakistan: Letters to Parents and Critical Reflections on the Single National Curriculum and the Medium of Instruction, all available as e-books from the Little Book Company.