ISLAMABAD
\nMinister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday said the Ministry of Education had been asked to hold a \u2018National Curriculum Summit\u2019 to work out necessary reforms and align the country\u2019s education system with the requirements of the modern era.
\n\u201cWe want to take the national curriculum beyond the O and A level education system,\u201d he said while addressing the launch ceremony of the Model Assessment Framework at the auditorium of the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE).
\nHe called for inviting experts from both the private and public sectors to discuss educational reforms so that a \u2018comprehensive review\u2019 could be carried out to frame and implement a modern curriculum system in the country.
\nThe Planning minister also expressed the desire to establish a state-of-the-art Teachers Training Center to improve the quality of education and produce manpower that meets contemporary needs, for which the Ministry of Education had already been given the task.
\nHe said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had initiated this project during its last tenure but could not complete it due to political instability. He added that the center, in collaboration with provincial education departments, would be the best in South Asia, where students could receive quality education focused on improving their critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, and team-learning skills.
\n\u201cIt will be a paradigm shift from memorization-based education,\u201d Iqbal said, adding that the initiative would also reform the existing examination system.Ahsan Iqbal said memorization-based education was irrelevant in the modern era, where innovation and creativity drive development.
\nHe believed that the country could not achieve the required goals of progress and prosperity without improving education standards and developing human resources. \u201cToday\u2019s era is not about muscle power; it\u2019s about brain power. Nations with superiority in brain power will succeed. The first step toward national progress is improving the education system.\u201d
\nMentioning a recent report by Pakistan\u2019s District Education Performance Index (DEPIx), which evaluated 134 districts\u2019 performance, he regretted that not a single district was listed in the \u2018Very High\u2019 category. Only Islamabad was placed in the \u2018High\u2019 category, while 56 districts secured the \u2018Medium\u2019 category\u201432 from Punjab, 16 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 8 from Sindh.
\nHe said 77 districts fell into the \u2018Low\u2019 category, with 33 from Balochistan and 22 from Sindh. Looking at the overall performance, the minister said Punjab\u2019s score stood at 61.39 percent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa\u2019s at 54.47 percent, Sindh\u2019s at 51.55 percent and Balochistan\u2019s at 45.50 percent.
\nAhsan Iqbal stressed that every country in the world today faced the challenge of aligning its education system with the needs of the modern age, due to the rapid changes taking place in all fields.
\n\u201cIn the coming days, the pace of development will further accelerate, and we (Pakistan) need to prepare its next generations with the skills of intellect, modern education, critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving and team learning,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday said the Ministry of Education had been asked to hold a \u2018National Curriculum Summit\u2019 to work out necessary reforms and align the country\u2019s education system with the requirements of the modern era. \u201cWe want to take the national curriculum beyond the O […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-444518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-national"},"yoast_head":"\n