LAHORE: The outright rejection of all the 106 manuscripts sent to provincial school education department by Punjab Curriculum Authority for selecting seven of them for printing textbooks based on new curricula will result not only in reversion to age-old content but also cause confusion among Class-VIII students in Pakistan’s most populous province the next academic session.
The Punjab Curriculum Authority (PCA) had granted No Objection Certificates (NOCs) to 106 manuscripts for seven textbooks for Class-VIII in December last year and the school education department’s selection committee was required to finalise seven manuscripts for printing and provision of textbooks based on new curriculum.
The school education department’s selection committee allegedly went beyond its mandate by reviewing the manuscripts and reportedly recommending that none of these were worth publishing.
School education department Secretary Abdul Jabbar Shaheen neither responded to a phone call nor an SMS sent on his mobile phone.
Punjab government spokesman, however, quoted Shaheen as saying that as all the 106 manuscripts were replete with mistakes, they could not be considered for publishing textbooks.
The publishers, who have spent millions of rupees and innumerable working hours for the development of Grade-VIII textbooks’ manuscripts, are also at loss as a result of this imbroglio involving PCA, PTB and school education department top officials.
The Gohar Publishers, meanwhile, has published mathematics, English, science, history and Islamiyat textbooks based on new curricula and marketed them.
Its Managing Director Abuzar Ghaffari said the Punjab government had been publishing textbooks based on modern curricula through competition amongst private publishers for last few years.
Regretting the situation, he said only textbooks based on new curricula would be beneficial for Class-VIII students joining the next academic session.
INTERNEWS
