LAHORE - In accordance with the new federal textbook policy scheduled to be implemented shortly, provincial education department has replaced the compulsory subject of 'Pakistan Studies with an elective one, while a chapter of Islamic studies have also been dropped, said sources in the education department on Thursday. They claimed that current textbook policy was the continuation of Musharrafs policy towards education and interestingly all other provinces except Punjab had refused to implement the same policy. As per new textbook policy, the duty to prepare the texts of the books was assigned to the to a Germany based Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) GTZ run by the Pakistani citizens. It merits mentioning that said NGO was allowed to establish its offices within the premises of Punjab Text Book Board (PTBB) and Punjab government allotted a complete flour of the building to facilitate it. A former chairman of PTBB, Jahangir Aziz, had granted the permission. The said NGO had also established its offices in Peshawar Text Book Board but now present provincial government of the NWFP has removed its offices from the premises of the board. One female representative of NGO, Nighat Lone has established her office in the Curriculum Wing of the Federal Education Department in Islamabad. Another active representative who is running the NGO MA Shahid is former director (technical) of Punjab Text Book Board. In this regard, President of Punjab Parent Teachers Committee Mehmood-ul-Hassan has said textbook policy should be the part of the education policy and it should be only under the supervision of the government officials and no private organisation like GTZ or person should be involved in it. He said Punjab Text Board was a 45 years old institution and it had served very valuable and economical books to its students. But during the previous government, Zubaida Jalal and Qazi Javed only to bless their dear ones chalked out a new policy, which was being tried to be implemented. He said through this policy not only the economical books would disappear from the market but also religious and cultural values would be distorted by the NGO serving the foreign interest. He termed the assigning of the preparation of text of the books to the private people a fraud. Mehmood was of the view that as per new syllabus learning based upon questioning and inquiry for which one would have to research about the learning need assessment for the children, while its pre-production testing was also mandatory. It is not possible for new publishers, he added.