CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE SINGLE NATIONAL CURRICULUM AND THE MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION

The Single National Curriculum has been introduced in Pakistan and will be implemented progressively up to Grade 12 by 2023. It is claimed to be the first step to ensure equal education for all children in the country and to foster national integration.

Unfortunately, Pakistan is a graveyard of initiatives that overpromise and underdeliver. In that context, what can be expected of the Single National Curriculum? How likely is to succeed? And what will be the consequences for students taught under it if it fails? Is it the most logical first step to achieve equality in education given many other more proximate causes? Can it promote national integration or could it become the source of further divisions? The history of earlier attempts to achieve integration through uniformity urges us to be cautious of unintended consequences.

The essays in this collection address these questions and provide a critical reflection on various aspects of the Single National Curriculum and its likely implications for the majority of children in Pakistan. The collection includes a separate discussion of the medium of instruction, an integral component of the Single National Curriculum with its own set of issues. Some alternatives for achieving the desired objectives are also offered for consideration.

Dr. Anjum Altaf, a member of the International Coalition for Education Reform in Pakistan (ICERP), obtained MA and PhD degrees from Stanford University. He was a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). He is the author of Transgressions: Poems Inspired by Faiz Ahmed Faiz (2019), More Transgressions: Poems Inspired by Faiz Ahmed Faiz (2021), and co-author (with Amit Basole) of Thinking with Ghalib: Poetry for a New Generation (2021).