Single National Curriculum is a long-debated topic, which has been a part of the education policy of all democratic and non-democratic governments since the independence of the country. This topic has come under the limelight recently albeit for all the wrong reasons.
The idea was recently put forward by the PTI government amid the uproar over One Nation, One Syllabus. Federal Minister for Education in the PTI government was tasked with consulting with stakeholders to create a consensus. SNC was launched in 2021 and faced a backlash from civil society for wrongly portraying and stereotyping women, both in syllabi and graphical illustrations. Former federal minister for education Mr Shafqat Mehmood had said that the purpose of SNC is to design methods of learning initially from class I to V then VI to VIII and later then IX and X curriculum will also be prepared. He clarified that the SNC is only to set a minimum fixed standard for teaching and learning.
There has been a number of allegations and criticism that the SNC received that it does not cater to the needs of both the genders and of all categories of society, contrary to what it was made for.
It became a topic of hot debate on social as well as mainstream electronic media. A number of NGOs working in the education sector and for gender equality criticised the SNC for being patriarchal and they highlighted that it does not focus on the needs of all the stakeholders.
Children would virtually perceive that women are meant to be ruled upon in a home.
Just after the launch of the SNC, some images surfaced on social media that showed females performing stereotypical roles and dealing with household chores. This has been a main objection against the SNC so far.
Many books for children under the SNC showed images of women and girls that actually give the impression that females are to perform stereotypical roles only. At a time, when government and private sectors are working in collaboration with international bodies to promote and ensure gender equality and women empowerment, the SNC emerged as the contrary effort to this.
It sabotaged the idea of women’s empowerment and in its true sense, it was not seen as a welcoming gesture by many segments of the society.
The current SNC covers curriculum guidelines for Grade1, Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4 and Grade 5. The subjects it covers include all compulsory subjects such as English, Urdu, History, Science etc.
The actual controversy stirred on English curriculum books, mainly on Grade 5 English book. If I take a start from its cover page, as listed below, the most debated and widely circulated image has been this cover page. It shows a family of four people, which includes a father, a mother, a son and a daughter. It shows that son is in the lap of his father reading an English book, while both are on a sofa, whereas, the mother and her daughter are sitting on the floor. This image became objectionable as many conceived it as that the females are being portrayed as inferior and males in a home setting are portrayed as superiors.
This image set a bad example for society as a whole, and as it was meant for children, it demeaned the value of women in a household. Children would virtually perceive that women are meant to be ruled upon in a home. This perception would initially seem smaller, but in the longer run, this thought would reflect in their actions in later life. This, as a consequence, would promote a society of male-dominant mentality. This mentality might lead to a society where females would be oppressed. This mental exploitation has all the possibilities to become deep-rooted.
Another example is of a poem (A Nation’s Strength) from the same Book English grade 5th page no. 86. In which men are presented as the nation builders and women are completely ignored. This minute selection of words has a large impact. Ignoring women completely is an act of high ignorance. It not only reflects the mindset of rulers and curriculum setters but also shows the level of sincerity that rulers have towards making our society a gender-biased society.
And this is not the first time this heinous intellectual crime has been done repeatedly in the past. A similar event occurred in the recent past when a book of home economics showed the daily routine of a woman in a household setting, which showed that a girl or a woman is meant to deal with cooking, cleaning and serving her family rather than making a career or work shoulder to shoulder with men. This demoralizing repetition of discouraging women from playing an active role in nation-building is a disgrace for the lawmakers as well who have claimed many times of protecting women’s rights and promoting the mantra of women empowerment.
It is not only similar to violating women’s rights but also clear exploitation of authority conferred upon the rulers by the constitution of Pakistan. After this critical analysis of the SNC, I am justified to say that despite few positives, SNC has failed to meet the expectation of being a fair and inclusive curriculum for women. The SNC should be in line with the rights given by the constitution of Pakistan for every citizen without the discrimination of gender, religion and social class of a citizen.
The writer is Assistant Project Coordinator (National Commission for Justice and Peace)