KARACHI: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Thursday sought a clarification from the Federal Ministry of Education and Professional Training on the implementation of the Single National Curriculum, saying that the provincial government might adopt only core curriculum subjects with minimum standards that could be further enriched by the province.

Presiding over a meeting to discuss the ‘Single National Curriculum Plan’ of the federal government, the chief minister asked the federal government to provide necessary clarification whether the province was to adopt the entire national curriculum or only core subjects of the Single National Curriculum.

“The Sindh government may adopt Single National Curriculum containing only core curriculum subjects with the minimum standards and further enrich it followed by the development of provincial curriculum of the remaining subjects such as languages, social studies, etc,” he added.

The meeting was attended by Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani, CM’s Adviser on Law Murtaza Wahab and other officers and experts.

Briefing the CM, the education minister said that a meeting was held on the Single National Curriculum (SNC) by the National Curriculum Council (NCC) with the federal education minister in chair in Sept 2019.

He said in order to implement the SNC, it was decided that the SNC developed by the federal ministry of education should be taken into consideration by provinces through holding review workshops at provincial level. “Once approved by the provinces, this SNC will be implemented nationally,” Saeed Ghani told the CM.

Provinces are empowered to design their own curricula after 18th Amendment, meeting told

The chief minister said that in view of 18th Amendment, the education portfolio was delegated as a provincial subject and since then the Sindh government had been working on curriculum as part of its provincial mandate and adopted the national curriculum 2006 and revised the curriculum on international models.

Mr Ghani said that in 2015, the Sindh government enacted The Sindh School Education Standards and Curriculum Act passed by the Sindh Assembly. He added that under the law, the Sindh Curriculum Council was established and the Bureau of Curriculum was reconstituted as Directorate of Curriculum Assessment and Research.

He said that the provincial education department had designed a curriculum for social studies for class VI to VIII using an integrated approach for all four aspects — history, civics, economics and geography.

The education minister said that he had held 9th meeting of the Sindh Curriculum Council (SCC) in March 2020 in which a detailed discussion regarding implementation of Single National Curriculum was made.

He said that the meeting observed that after the 18th Amendment, development of curriculum and syllabus had become the responsibility of provinces.

The chief minister said that the federal education ministry may be asked to provide necessary clarification whether it was an adoption of the whole national curriculum or only core subjects of SNC.

He directed the education department to study and compare the curriculum of the federal government with the curriculum of the Sindh government which was designed under the guidelines of ‘21st Century Learning Skills’ and send him the recommendations.

2,430 coronavirus cases found

CM Shah on Thursday said that 2,430 new cases of coronavirus were detected when 9,436 tests were conducted raising the tally to 89,225 cases while 31 more patients died lifting the death toll to 1,437.

In a statement issued here from CM House, he said that 9,436 samples were tested against which 2,430 new cases of coronavirus emerged constituting 26 per cent detection rate.

He said that so far 471,023 tests had been conducted which diagnosed 89,225 cases all over Sindh, of them 49,926 were cured, including 1,399 overnight. “The recovery rate in the province stands at 56 per cent,” he said.

He said 31 more patients died lifting the death toll to 1,437 that constituted 1.6pc death rate. He added that currently 37,893 patients of Covid-19 were under treatment.

He said that currently 754 were in critical condition, of them 101 were shifted to ventilators.

He said out of 2,430 new cases, 1,177 were detected in all six districts of Karachi division. They include 389 in South, 296 in East, 168 in Central, 117 in Korangi, 111 in Malir and 96 in West.

He said Hyderabad had 89 new cases, Dadu 58, Ghotki 55, Thatta 51, Shaheed Benazirabad 48, Tando Allahyar 47, Larkana 47, Naushahro Feroze 41, Sukkur 38, Khairpur 37, Tando Mohammad Khan 37, Shikarpur 35, Sujawal 30, Matiari 21, Jamshoro 19, Badin 17, Jacobabad 16, Sanghar 15, Umerkot 13, Mirpurkhas 11, Qambar and Kashmore one each.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2020