Much has been debated about the Single National Curriculum (SNC) on electronic media, with misinformed memes on social media apps and counter narrative essays presented overwhelming newspapers. Late last year, the debate mainly focused on the content of curriculum and the agony of the private school chains in discontinuing their own flashy syllabi, highlighting the economic disparities of society, which can be described as an education apartheid. Since, the dust has settled on this, a new point of contention was expressed by the members of the civil society, academics, and minority rights activists about the Islamisation of the national curriculum, which violates the Article 22 of the Pakistani constitution, allowing for freedom of religion at academic institutions. However, religious minorities were later exempted from studying specific parts of syllabus highlighting core Islamic concepts that formed the basis of their debate.
Before I delve deep into this issue let me recall the Government of India Act 1935, which contained three legislative lists, the federal, concurrent, and provincial lists. The partition of state subjects falling in each specific category precluded any effort of transgression if made by the provincial or federal governments. Any matter in relation to devising the educational policy, implementation and the curriculum fell under the provincial legislative list. Later, when Pakistan had its first constitution in 1956, which ensured placing all sorts of education of all levels in the domain of provinces, the same practice was continued in the making of the 1962 constitution.
A major shift of education was noticed in the constitution of 1973, which was placed in the concurrent and federal legislative list in contrast to retaining it as a provincial subject. Both the lists dealt with specific entries of education, but the concurrent list included some additional functions, for instance planning curriculum and maintaining standards of education and empowering the central government to become a major stakeholder in running the affairs of education. In the pre-18th Amendment era, education in the concurrent list was a jointly run function of the federal as well as provincial governments.
In 2010, the passing of the 18th Amendment revised the constitutional framework of distribution of powers between the central and provincial government, including abolishing the concurrent list that brought several subjects, including education under the direct control of provinces. Since then, provinces were empowered with developing curriculum, and running the education sector independently.
The SNC policy, in line with a bunch of promises of Naya Pakistan, including having a uniform curriculum nationwide, feels like a dream come true. But coercing private school bodies to enforce the SNC and scrapping provincial autonomy has never been the mandate of the public, who chose PTI. In support of the curriculum, the federal government has gone beyond the 18th constitutional Amendment, which had transferred the curriculum-making power to provinces.
Another looming question with respect to the inclusion of Pakistan’s regional languages in public education is regarding the concerns about social justice and respect that each province’s value, beliefs, and customs should be legitimately reflected in the National Curriculum. Article 251, sub-clause (3) of the Pakistani constitutions reads, “Without prejudice……law prescribes the measure for the teaching, promotion and use of a provincial language in addition to the national language.” The SNC’s promotion of other regional languages is lagging as well by enforcing a curriculum taught through Urdu. In a country rich in diverse cultures, there are over 66 languages spoken other than Urdu which hold educational and cultural value for the provinces. But they are ignored by the federal government with the SNC.
Since Pakistan’s inception in 1947, the country has been facing a national identity problem that has led to its obsession in search of a collective identity. This time, the country’s incumbent government has further deepened the identity crisis by employing educational policies and developing a curriculum—something that has never been its constitutional mandate. For the betterment of the country, already marred by political and financial crisis, this or any successive government should aim to collaborate with concerned stakeholders, and by setting aside political aims and gains, can foster national integration, which is the need of the hour.
Mohsin Saleemullah
The writer holds an LLM in business law from UC Berkeley and is a practicing lawyer and columnist. He tweets
@MohsinSaleemu and can be reached at mohsin.saleemullah
@berkeley.edu.
