Govt ready to implement uniform education system in country: Shafqat Mehmood

Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood said the federal government is ready to implement Uniform National Curriculum from April 2021 in public schools and August 2021 in private schools, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

He was addressing a Future Summit in Karachi on Wednesday.

Shafqat Mehmood said there is a provincial meeting on November 23 to review the situation in schools and there will be no compromise on the issue of children's health. 

“We are trying to unify the curriculum in the whole country. The system of local government is ready,” he added.

Talking about the challenges of the education system in Pakistan, Shafqat Mehmood said, “There are a number of things and challenges including literacy rate, out of schools problems. We have education apartheid, in which we have different education systems including elite base education system which only caters many of us, government schools system unfortunately negate led for last 70 years.”

“Then there is a religious school system (madrassah) and all having their own certificates and curriculum,” he added.

The Education Minister stated: “Education gives you a way of understanding different things in the world. We are trying to address fully through something we called Single National Curriculum. We will make sure that all students in Pakistan will have the same learning outcome and try to address the question of language as English has become a “class” not a learning opportunity.”

”Fixing educational matters by April 2021 in government schools and in August in private schools,” Shafqat Mehmood announced.

Shafqat Mehmood said: “We are launching a special programme for the out of school children and expanding the programme Waseela-e-Taleem so maximum number of children may go to schools and also focusing on technology to reach out to teachers and students including TeleSchool.

“The government is going to Radio Schools for class 1 to class 5 within a few days,” he announced.

“Eight million children are watching teleschool. First there were problems with the internet etc. Now it is getting better. Rs100 billion is being given to universities by development funds.”

Talking about the local bodies’ elections, Shafqat Mehmood said: “There is a need to build a strong local government system. We are in the process of drafting law that is almost in final touches and very soon, depending on the COVID-19 situation the government is going to implement that.”