PR No.49 Islamabad

2-days consultative workshop of the National Curriculum Council on Minimum National Standards for Quality Education in Pakistan organized by the ministry of federal education and GIZ Pakistan, started at Islamabad Hotel today.

18th amendment left the provinces and without any formal means of coordination in the education sector particularly for ensuring a uniform direction of education reforms. Therefore a judicious realization has resulted in various reforms initiatives e.g. revival of Inter Provincial Education Ministers’ Conference, formation of National Curriculum Council etc by the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional training. 7 provincial level dialogues and 2 inter provincial technical working groups have been held to discuss the development of minimum national standards for quality education so far. And this meeting would finalize a draft and would present it to the 7th IPEMC in December 2015.

Some of the basic purposes of this workshop are; to carry out the final review of the document of minimum standards of quality education, to agree upon the implementation framework of the quality standards, and to conceptualize the National Curriculum Framework for Pakistan.

Several meetings were held to present a revised draft at the 4th IPEMC in January 2015 in which it was decided to hand the document over to the newly formed NCC for review and finalization. NCC has two main mandates including development of minimum national standards and development of a national framework. Standards for the following areas were defined in the document including learners, textbooks, curriculum, teachers, assessment, early learning and development, school learning environment and comprehensive framework for implementation.

Speaking on the occasion federal secretary education Hasan Iqbal said that it’s a pleasure to hold this very important session of inter provincial nature here in Islamabad. This step towards development of standards of quality education is key to success. I believe that as long as we are moving in the right direction we will reach the destination, even if we are moving slowly and gradually, said the secretary. But still we must always set our pace according to the situation and judge our environment before implementing anything. He said that we should not reinvent the wheel instead work upon the existing system and make it work. He further added that we should rectify our past mistakes and should move on.

Federal Secretary said that quality education is everyone’s right but unfortunately we don’t have a set standard for that. Several school systems are running in our country. The reason for low performance in education indicators are many including lack of ownership, inadequate budgetary allocation, weak institutions, and human capacity etc. But I am glad that all the provinces/areas are committed to tackle the challenges that devolution has brought and ready to work together for the education, said the secretary education.

In the end federal secretary thanked the participants and lauded the efforts of GIZ in extending their support for education.

Workshop is attended by scholars, educationists, education policy makers and government officials.

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