Activists and educationists including Catholics have criticized the revised Single National Curriculum (SNC) of Pakistan for its loaded Islamic religious content.
Speakers at a Feb. 9 seminar on “how the school curriculum is evolving” said the government ignored most changes experts suggested for the textbooks.
“The curriculum for the subject of History does not acknowledge the religious and cultural diversity of Pakistan, which leaves the impression that cultural, religious and ethnic minorities are disassociated and disengaged,” said researcher Zeeba Hashmi.
She and other experts such as Peter Jacob expressed similar concerns at the seminar organized by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and Working Group for Inclusive Education in Lahore.
The National Curriculum Council two months ago sought recommendations from civil society to revise the Education Policy Framework 2018 while preparing the second phase of the curriculum for grades 6-8.
The revised curricula were issued last week online.
Hashmi and others expressed concern that their Muslim-majority nation was moving away from the multi-religious character stressed by the founding leader of Pakistan (Quaid-i-Azam) Muhammad Ali Jinnah when the nation was formed seven decades ago.
“Insensitive handling of topics such as the partition of India might cause alienation among the Muslim students and hatred against religious minorities,” Hashmi told UCA News.
Pakistan and India were formed in 1947 by portioning British India. Muslim-majority areas became Pakistan and Hindu majority area remained India but it caused unprecedented Hindu-Muslim riots killing at least 200,000 people, according to some accounts.
The minority Hindus, who decided to stay put in Pakistan continue to face hatred and violence from the Muslim majority there, while Muslims in Hindu-majority India face the same fate.
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Hashmi said the theme on role models of Pakistan “does not leave any room for mentioning minority heroes. Transgender persons have no representation. No information is provided on the diversity of religions and cultures in a global context in the subject of Geography.”
“The subject of English, embedded with Islamic content under different themes such as tolerance and fairness, may result in repetition for Muslim students and alienation of the minority students,” Hashmi said.
Prime Minister Imran Khan introduced a uniform education system — the Single National Curriculum (SNC) — which was criticized for the overtly Islamic content in compulsory subjects.
Educationists fear that Khan’s inclination towards madrasas (schools for Islamic instruction) might lead to the loss of students’ ability to reason independently from the dictates of Islamic thought.
The Federal Ministry for Education and Professional Training has already completed the first phase of the SNC for grades 1-5 in Punjab province.
“The government of Punjab continues to ignore the learning losses incurred due to the pandemic and other factors, it is turning schools into Islamic seminaries reducing the scope of education in science, maths and social science,” said Peter Jacob, the Catholic director of CSJ.
He wanted the government to form curricula based on constitutional provisions such as freedom of religion, equality of protection before the law, and other guarantees given to educational institutions regarding the practice of religion.
“Minority students must not be forced to study Islamiat (Islamic religious studies) under any excuse, and teachers must be hired to teach minority students their own religion as an alternative as promised in the Single National Curriculum,” said Jacob.
Education activists say religion-centric practices in public education are loaded with religious content, changing the very character of school education.
Last month, Punjab’s Minister for Education directed school authorities to adjust the timing of afternoon prayers (known as Zuhr) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
In December, the School Education Department of Punjab notified the compulsory reciting of Durood Shareef (a salutation to Prophet Muhammad) along with the recitation of the Quran before the national anthem during morning assemblies in all public and private schools.
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