Govt committed to improve quality of education: Baligh

ISLAMABAD, July 20 (APP): Minister for Education Engr Bligh ur Rehman Thursday said the government is committed to improve the quality of education in the country and revision of curricula based on modern educational standards.
He said this while chairing a meeting of Curriculum Review Committee
to review the finalized curricula for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) upto Class 5, a news release said.
In the meeting, the minister was briefed by Joint Education Adviser
Rafiq Tahir on the new curricula of eight subjects that were part of the review exercise including, Pre-primary education, General Science, General Knowledge, Social Studies, Mathematics, Islamiat, Urdu and English.
Curriculum supplement incorporating material on values and ethics with
focus on: integrity and honesty; civic sense, local and global citizenship;
health and hygiene; environmental protection; democratic culture; national harmony, tolerance and respect for diversity, was also reviewed during the meeting.
The revised curricula of all subjects duly incorporate the material on
ethics and values in their contents, Minister was told.
The minister said focus of the new curricula on conceptual
learning with defined Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs), ethical training, character building, appreciation of diversity, democratic and civil understanding would not only improve scholarship but also promote responsible citizenship.
He congratulated the committee on this achievement and
issued instructions to the committee on the timely transformation of revised curricula into textbooks, which are expected to be developed by December end this year.
He also told the committee to ensure that concepts in the new
curricula are adequately reflected in classroom trainings and assessments through coordinated work of curriculum developers, textbook writers and teachers.
Revised Curricula for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) and
classes one to five has been developed by a working group of education specialists, curriculum experts, teachers and government officials.
Adviser on Prime Minister’s Education Reforms Programme Ali Raza,
Secretary Federal Education, Shoaib Mir, Curriculum Experts, Officials of Ministry and NCC Secretariat attended the meeting.