Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training, Shafqat Mehmood has said that single national curriculum will be implemented across the country from August 2021 to improve education standards for students. Talking to a private television channel, the education minister said that single national curriculum has been developed in consultation with area governments, adding that students of pre-1 to grade 5 will follow it. He said that it will come into effect across all public and private schools in the next academic year starting from August. He lamented how an elite class was benefiting from better educational facilities as compared to students of religious seminaries and others who were not provided equal opportunities. He said a “certain class” in the country thinks that only Cambridge and Oxford know what educational standards are and how they can be perfected. “This is only the thinking of a particular class here,” he said. “So, the standards [education in Pakistan] will rise,” added the minister. “First of all, our syllabus can be compared with that of any other syllabus around the world,” he said. “We have prepared it keeping in mind modern standards of education,” added Shafqat. When prodded to explain how education standards courtesy the new syllabus will improve, Shafqat said that teachers’ training will improve and distance learning will be improved. “The kids studying in religious seminaries and those studying in elite schools will have the same educational standards,” he said. “And those standards will be higher, not lower.”