PA resolution calls for teaching Sindhi as compulsory subject in private schools

The Sindh Assembly on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution calling upon the provincial government to ensure compulsory teaching of the Sindhi language in all private schools of the province.

The private resolution was moved by MPA Marvi Faseeh of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. The resolution calls for compulsory teaching of the Sindhi language in all private schools of the province as per the provisions of the Sindh Educational Institutions (Regulation & Control) Rules-2005 for the registration of the privately-run educational institutions.

Addressing the house, Education Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah said concerned parents should report to the education department private schools which were reluctant to ensure the teaching of Sindhi to their students so that due penal action could be taken against them.

He said private schools were not fulfilling a number of conditions laid down in the registration rules of the education department as the issue was not just confined to the teaching of Sindhi to their students on a compulsory basis. He added that a number of private schools were situated in the city on plots as small as 60 to 70 square yards and as such under the registration rules, their existence should not be allowed.

Shah said a number of private schools were not fulfilling the condition of offering free of charge education to 10 per cent of their students as per the registration rules. He further stated that the government would definitely use its influence to ensure the introduction of the Sindhi language as a subject in private schools following the Cambridge system of education.

He said the private schools affiliated with the Cambridge system were not introducing the language on the pretext that its teaching was not being given due recognition and honour by the federal government. He added that a proposal to declare seven languages as being national languages of the country to give them due honour and recognition had been pending since the previous federal government was in power.

The minister said a fresh census was being carried out by his department to determine the exact number of private schools in the province and the academic and other facilities available with them.

He warned that stern action would be taken against private schools which were not fulfilling the conditions of their registration and such educational institutions could face cancellation of their registration altogether. He said that due penal action would be taken against the owners of private schools which didn’t fulfil the conditions of registration laid down by the government.

He said there had been a consensus at the international level among academic experts and global bodies like Unesco that early childhood education should be imparted to children in their mother tongue. The same norm should be adopted for the students of privately-run schools in the province, he emphasized.

Other speakers also emphasised that early education should include the teaching of the Sindhi language on a compulsory basis for the best academic results.

Aurat March

Earlier, speaking on a point of order, the lone member of the opposition Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal in the house, Syed Abdul Rasheed, announced that he would file an application with the police station concerned for lodging an FIR against the organisers of the recently held ‘Aurat March’ in the city on the occasion International Women’s Day, saying the placards displayed by participants of the march were in sheer negation of Islamic injunctions.

The MMA legislator said the Constitution of Pakistan and the law of the land based on Islam did not allow such events, and the government should not grant permission for such marches in the name of women’s rights.

He hoped that the Sindh government would support his move to initiate due legal action against the organisers of the march. He alleged that the placards displayed by participants of the Aurat March had brazenly ridiculed the Islamic teachings, norms and injunctions and, and that the holding of such activities was therefore not at all acceptable in Pakistan.

Rasheed stated that such activities should not be allowed in a country which had come into existence in the name of Islam. Responding to the point of order on behalf of the government, the energy minister said the government did not grant permission to any such event in the city on the occasion of International Women’s Day. He made it clear that the government never backed the holding of such events whose proceedings went against the Islamic teachings.

Meanwhile, an opposition legislator of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan in the house, Mufti Muhammad Qasim, while speaking on a point of order, condemned remarks recently uttered by Federal Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda.

PPP MPA Sharjeel Inam Memon clarified in the house that the federal water resources minister had already sought an unconditional apology over his uncalled for remarks while terming them the result of a slip of the tongue.

Opposition boycotts

The lawmakers of three main opposition political parties in the house did not attend the proceedings of the session on Tuesday as part of their ongoing protest drive. The lawmakers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the Muttahida Quami Movement Pakistan and the Grand Democratic Alliance have been protesting against the decision of the Sindh government of not offering to the opposition the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee of the assembly.