[LAP] Language and the proposed National curriculum

[Ahmar Mahboob]

On Jan 20, Dawn reported that the National Curriculum Council had released the draft National Curriculum (NCC). It reported that the document only advocated for English and Urdu as the Medium of Instruction (https://www.dawn.com/news/1529365). There was a huge and justified public outcry against this.

It needs to be stated that this draft policy has not been shared with the public for feedback and comments. As of the writing of this note, the document is not available on the Ministry of Education website (http://www.moent.gov.pk/policiesDetails.aspx) and there are no venues through which people can read or respond to the draft.

On Jan 21, Dawn reported that the National Curriculum Council, in a meeting that did not include representatives from Sindh or Punjab, unanimously decided to change their position on language of instruction and allow provinces to adopt any language they choose until Grade 5 (https://www.dawn.com/news/1529559/single-national-curriculum-draft-revised-provinces-empowered-to-decide-on-mother-languages).

This change in policy does not address the role or complexity of language in education and education policy. It merely shifts the responsibility of dealing with language from the federal  government to the provinces, where minority and Indigenous languages may still be excluded.

This quick reaction and response to the criticism NCC received reflects a lack of understanding of the role of language in education. The timeframe - 72 hours - that NCC has identified for making changes about language and other issues in the proposed curriculum suggests that only cosmetic changes will be made.

NCC also shows a lack of awareness of MTB-MLE (mother tongue based multilingual education) as a strategy for supporting all languages spoken across the country. MTB-MLE can support all languages used in Pakistan and help children from diverse linguistic backgrounds to learn about and through their mother tongues.

As a proposed National Curriculum, the document needs to provide a detailed framework of how mother tongues will be used to help students in their learning, but such discussions seem to be missing.

If I were to give a grade to NCC’s work so far, it would be: “poor work: redraft and resubmit”.

Instead of taking quick knee jerk reactions, the NCC needs to recall the draft, integrate understanding of language (which include: a. understanding what language is; b. understanding how languages are learnt; and, c. understanding how learning takes place through language) throughout the curriculum, open the revised draft to public comment, and then make adjustments as necessary.

NCC needs to remember that a success of an education policy is grounded in the acceptance and support of the policy by the stake holders. The current approaches used by NCC seem to be missing this point.

Prof Nomad
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