ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood on Wednesday said that religious seminaries have affirmed that their students would appear in the middle, matric and intermediate level examination of the federal board like other public and private schools.
He said that seminaries have, in principle, agreed with the federal government’s initiative for bringing their students into the mainstream in order to ensure a uniform education system in the country.
Addressing a press conference, he said the government has established the National Curriculum Council (NCC) under which the new curriculum from class one to five is being prepared which would be introduced by March 2020.
In this regard, he said, all stakeholders including public and private sector schools, madrassas and other concerned departments have been taken on board on the issue.
He said that after holding several meetings regarding religious seminaries with Wafaq-Ul-Madaris, it has been decided that the madrassa students would appear in the middle, matric and intermediate examinations like the students of other schools.
The passed students of madrassas would be awarded the degrees of matric and intermediate, he added.
Shafqat said the public, private schools and religious seminaries would be bound to adopt One National Curriculum.
After intermediate, the madrassa students would be eligible to join civil, security and other services, he said.
This is the major achievement of the present government regarding implementation of the uniform education system, he remarked.
The federal cabinet in its last meeting had approved to open twelve country-wide offices of the education ministry for the registration of the religious seminaries.
For this purpose, the cabinet had also approved the budget of Rs two billion for the next three years.
He said PC-I of the project is being prepared, adding that the government would make efforts to ensure proper use of funds.
On the demand of madrassas, the government has provided them the period of four to five years for completely implementing new educational policy, he said.
He added that the government would provide all-out support including financial and teaching to seminaries after registration.
