Prime Minister Imran Khan Thursday stressing the need to enforce the uniform education curriculum in the country said that it was the government’s priority to do away with the education apartheid.

The prime minister, in a meeting to discuss the progress in the education reforms and government’s efforts to advance its education agenda in the wake of COVID-19 situation, directed to devise a strategy to address the financial difficulties being faced by the educational institutions and the reservations of parents regarding the payment of fees.

The meeting was attended by Minister for Professional Education and Training Shafqat Mahmood, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Shibli Faraz, Special Assistant to the PM Asim Saleem Bajwa, Punjab Higher Education Minister Raja Yasir Humayun, Higher Education Commission Chairman Tariq Binouri and senior officers.

The prime minister was updated on the progress in the enforcement of uniform education curriculum, reforms in seminaries and higher education. It was told that a uniform curriculum for class 1 to 5 would be enforced by April 2021 and the consultation with the stakeholders was in progress for designing the curriculum for class 6 to 8.

The prime minister was told that around eight million students were benefiting from the Teleschool initiative introduced amidst the closure of educational institutions due to the pandemic. Moreover, an E-Taleem portal would also be launched and the services of Radio Pakistan were being obtained to teach the students living in remote areas.

Imran Khan called for formulation of a joint strategy in collaboration with the provincial education ministers regarding the future teaching process. The prime minister also directed the ministry concerned to speed up the efforts to enforce the mechanism agreed with the seminaries in order to bring their students in the mainstream by imparting them contemporary education.

He instructed for utilizing all available resources to ease out the teaching process particularly in the prevailing situation. The prime minister was also apprised on the various steps taken to reform the education system with the cooperation from international organizations.

Regarding the issue of the campuses of federal universities in the provinces, the prime minister called for devising a comprehensive strategy to maintain the quality of education without hurting the study process of students at those campuses.

He called for acquainting the students with modern education to make them cope with modern-day challenges. He also called for out-of-box solutions to address the challenges in the education sector and help promote quality education in the country.