Askari examination boards on cards

Education Minister Ms Zubaida Jalal has said that the changes in the current curricula of Pakistani schools was necessary to meet modern day challenges.
She said these changes are not being made on the directives from any quarter and was being done at our own.
Askari examination boards were being established from 2006. Primarily, these boards would conduct examinations of Army schools as well as other schools. Government or private sector will have the liberty to get affiliation with the Askari Examination boards, she said.
The Askari Examination boards would only conduct matriculation examinations, She told GEO Television.
The task of curricula project was not being assigned to the Agha Khan foundation, Zubaida said.
The Agha Khan examination board was approved by the previous government as a first private sector examination board, she informed.
Advising education sector community not to be afraid of it, she said the Agha Khan Board would be bound to take examination in accordance with the curricula prescribed by the government. It was being wrongly portrayed that the examination boards, provincial and others were going under the Agha Khan examination board.
The process of refinement of the whole curricula was being initiated in 2000, much before coming of the report which was being speculated in certain quarters, the minister said.
First review on school curricula was considered in 2000. It has been implemented. Since 2002 the review of social sciences, Arts and other subjects were being in the process.
She said abolition of text book boards was not being considered.
She rejected the allegations from some quarters that the verses from the Holy Quran have been excluded from school curricula. Only lengthy verses have been replaced with the shorter ones to facilitate children, she said.
Religious Institutions, she said were being urged to add some additional subjects in their curricula. By this, the religious students would be equipped with the religious and worldly education.
She agreed that non-Muslims should be exempted to learn Islamic studies in the schools.
She said, to get students know about Pakistan, Geography and History curricula would also be changed.
She appealed the world community not to mix fundamentalism and terrorism with each other. These are two separate things and should not be intermixed, she added.