Daily Times

PESHAWAR: The Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Elementary and Secondary Education Department has attained milestone in the history of the province by making the teaching of the Holy Quran compulsory subject in all the public and private schools.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Department plans to teach the teachings of the Holy Quran (Nazra) as a compulsory subject from Grade first to fifth and translation of the Holy Quran from Grade Sixth to Tenth for Muslim students both in public as well as private institutions in the province.

The summary was approved by the Chief Minister for placement before the provincial cabinet of KP and the same will be implemented in the forthcoming Educational Session.

The Objectives Resolution (a substantive part of the Constitution under Article 2a) commands that the Muslims in Pakistan shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings and requirements of Islam as set out in the Holy Quran and Sunnah.

It is one of the Principles of Policy, vide Article 31 of the Constitution, that steps shall be taken to enable the Muslims of Pakistan, individually and collectively, to order their lives in accordance with the fundamental principles and basic concepts of Islam and to provide facilities whereby they may be enabled to understand the meaning of life according to the Holy Quran and Sunnah.

It has further been provided that the state shall endeavor, as respects the Muslims of Pakistan, to make the teaching of the Holy Quran and Islamiat compulsory, to encourage and facilitate the learning of Arabic language and to secure correct and exact printing and publishing of the Holy Quran.

Development partners: The Planning and Development (P&D) Department, of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), would attain the task to attend the third joint consultative session with international development partners under the Strategic Development Partnership Framework (SDPF) to be held on 24th January 2017 in Islamabad.

The Statement issued from the Press Information Department KP stated the day-long session will be attended by all the development partners and the heads of all the Departments of the Government of KP. The joint session of the Sectoral Coordination Committees (SCCs) serve to be a platform to strengthen the SDPF process through joint review of progress of all service delivery departments, identify challenges and come up with shared development agenda to be pursued in the coming one year to achieve tangible development targets. The Secretary P&D department, KP government said “We were rigorously following developments on SDPF since the start, and this has resulted in mobilizing the government departments and development partners on a single agenda for socio-economic development in the province.”

“This joint session is very critical and there will be very candid discussion with development partners on the achievements so far and the gaps will be identified. The session is going to agree on and recommend a clear action plan for the achievement of tangible SDPF targets set in the remaining one year of its time period” he added.

The recommendation of this session would be endorsed by the High level Dialogue to be chaired by the Chief Minister and attended by all the heads of foreign missions.

The SDPF is a partnership framework between the government of KP and international donors to achieve shared and common development objectives in the province. It has moved into its fourth year of implementation since being introduced in October 2013.

The framework aims at creating partnership for facilitating the socio-economic development of the province through concerted efforts by the government and development partners.

The SDPF laid a solid foundation for aligning the donor financial assistance with the provincial policies and priorities as well as country system. In order to ope-rationalize the SDPF and to realign development spending both by Government and donors with the reforms agenda of the government, SDPF has proved to be an excellent tool.