National Curriculum Council officials hold meeting with Sindh Education Minister to discuss various curriculum matters.
Karachi
A joint meeting of Sindh Education Department and the National Curriculum Council on Thursday discussed the adoption of standards for seven religious minorities and their textbooks, namely Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Baha’i, Buddhism, and Kalasha.
The meeting was held at Karachi under the chairmanship of Minister for Education Sindh Syed Sardar Ali Shah. Director National Curriculum Council Dr. Mariam Chughtai and Chief Advisor (Curriculum) Dr. Fouzia Khan attended the meeting.
Provincial Education Minister said that it was pleasing that Sindh’s stand on curriculum has been recognized by the Federation, which the previous government tried to influence in the name of the Single Nation Curriculum.
Sardar Ali Shah said that efforts are being made to ensure that any behavior promoting violence or intolerance and extremism in the society is not made part of the textbooks.
The meeting approved three initiatives. Firstly, the National Curriculum core standards for four subjects — English, Math, Science, Computer Science – were finalized. Secondly, a partnership between Sindh Education Ministry and NCC Secretariat on Teacher Professional Development was approved for public school teachers. Lastly, the meeting also saw the adoption of standards for seven religious minorities and their textbooks — namely Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Baha’i, Buddhism, and Kalasha.
Experts from the Directorate of Curriculum and Research (DCAR) Government of Sindh remained an active part of the development of standards and later review of the textbooks. Their valuable input helped develop standards and textbooks as per the required standards and finalized standards for Grades ECE-8 for English, General Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science will be reviewed for adoption in Sindh.
Sindh Education Ministry and NCC Secretariat will partner to implement Teacher Professional Development Project in select districts of Sindh. This will help NCC model similar training for other provinces. For the first time, a separate curriculum for seven religious minorities: Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Baha’i, Kalasha, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism has been developed with consensus of concerned religious groups. The Government of Sindh will adopt the standards and facilitate the review of textbooks on this curriculum. These decisions will be formally announced in a joint press briefing in Karachi in the next few days. Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training Rana Tanvir Hussain and Minister for Education Sindh Syed Sardar Shah will address the press conference. (PR)
_________________
