Federal Education Minister, Shafqat Mahmood, in a press conference on Monday (16 August) at the Press Information Department (PID) said that Monday is going to be a highly auspicious day for the country as the prime minister will officially launch the SNC.
It was communicated that the Single National Curriculum was launched in all provinces, except Sindh, to both public and private institutes for classes Pre-1 (kindergarten) to five.
Prime Minister Imran Khan said that he is hopeful for Sindh too that it will adopt SNC at a later stage. in addition to this, he said that he will hold meetings with the education minister and the chief minister of Sindh soon. It was conveyed that this National Curriculum plan was going to be launched in three different phases.
- The first was for grades kindergarten, to five to be implemented for the academic year 2021-2022.
- The second for grades six to eight, to be implemented in 2022-2023.
- The third for grades ninth to twelve followed in 2023-2024.
The minister acknowledged that with the implementation of new initiatives, there would be challenges in the implementation but such obstacles will be overcome. He warned that those private institutions violating the curriculum will face adverse consequences but they will be permitted to teach more than the curricula if they had the resources.
He also added that he would ensure there was no shortage of the books, as along with state publishers, private publishers had also been issued non-objection licenses to print the SNC academic material. Such books were going to be relatively cheaper compared to other books as well.
Imran Khan’s reason for this change is that he delved into the vision of his party, Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI), to end educational disparity. He discussed that many issues faced in the country were due to unequal educational opportunities, a few percentages of kids got education from high-end private schools helping them to excel, while others from the public sector lagged behind with less or no opportunities.
He said that SNC will not only aid in academic subjects but also build character, tolerance, nationalism, and inform people of their civic responsibility. It was also reported that Nazra will be added as a course for Muslim students and the life of the Holy Prophet (s.a.w) was to be familiarized with the students as well.
