News Desk
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal has said that Pakistan required a comprehensive national curriculum to produce brilliant and creative minds and to compete with challenges in the world in the fast-growing 21st century.
Addressing a roundtable conference here on Tuesday, the planning and developing minister said universities, colleges, schools, and educational institutions both in the public and private sectors have the potential to exceed, however, it needed fine-tuning and proper ownership from across the board to achieve the desired results.
He said, there must be a comprehensive curriculum that should lead towards producing creative and analytical minds and inspire critical thinking as this is the era of intellectual capital and brain power that determine the future of a nation.
Ahsan Iqbal deplored that at present the education system lacked the essence of observation and reason and it is unfortunate that teachers discourage students to question in class, adding that the comprehensive national curriculum would provide space to overcome these problems and equip teachers with modern methods of teaching.
Producing brilliant minds
Recalling the bright past of Muslim scholars, the minister said that they adopted the required methodology and produced great learners like Ibn e Sina, Ibn-e-Rushd and Al-Khwarizmi, adding that if there would had a concept of Nobel prize at that time, over 70 percent of those would have gone to Muslim intellectuals.
He urged the education ministry to work on proposals for establishing a state-of-the-art teachers’ training center on priority bases so that they may be implemented.
