LONDON: Federal Minister of Education Shafqat Mahmood has told the World Education Forum that Pakistan is doing everything possible to update its curriculum through comprehensive educational reforms to meet modern requirements.
Mahmood is in London these days to attend the World Education Forum. He spoke about the curriculum reforms that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government has been undertaking on “emergency basis”. Azad Kashmir’s Education Minister Syed Iftikhar Gilani also attended the forum and shared the AJK government’s plans to reform the education system.
Several presidents of universities and senior officials were also in attendance. The annual event brings together representatives of education system from around the world to brainstorm the educational reforms and new techniques.
Mahmood told the Forum that the PTI government had increased education budget to increase literacy rate in the country. He told the audience that for over a year the PTI government had been working extensively at the federal level to introduce structural reforms in the education system. He told the conference that Prime Minister Imran Khan had prioritised reforming education system to end disparity of the system and the government was working on it. The education minister also met Baroness Sugg and Andrew Stephenson MP as well as officials from the Department for International Development (DFID) to discuss the UK’s education programme in Pakistan.
Mahmood informed the British officials of seriousness of Imran Khan’s government to overhaul the education system to empower Pakistani youth. He told the British officials that aid provided by the DFID had helped Pakistan improve quality literacy rate.Syed Gilani informed the conference that introduction of the National Test Service (NTS) in Azad Kashmir had revolutionised the system as every teacher being appointed in schools and colleges was going through a rigorous merit-based test system. He said reforms were being introduced through NTS to root out political appointees.
“Dispensation of quality education starts with teachers. For decades, most of the teachers were appointed through a system of cronyism. We have ended this completely, which has helped us improve our education standards a great deal and the whole system is now on the right track,” he added.
As the delegates gathered for the conference in London, the United Nations said in a report that a third of the world’s poorest girls, aged between 10 and 18, have never been to school. The report from Unicef, the UN’s children’s agency, warned that poverty and discrimination were denying an education to millions of young people.
“As long as public education spending is disproportionately skewed towards children from the richest households, the poorest will have little hope of escaping poverty,” said Unicef’s executive director, Henrietta Fore.
