Islamabad - National Council of Curriculum (NCC) has finalised the curriculum for Early Childhood Care Education (ECCE), and will be tabled today for approval, The Nation learnt on Tuesday.

An official said that curriculum for ECCE will be presented before the Minister of State for Federal Education and Professional Training, Muhammad Baligh-ur-Rehman today and it will likely be approved.

NCC was given the task to finalise the curriculum. The revised curriculum will cover the syllabus of classes from 1 to 5.

Official informed The Nation that the notification of the newly revised curriculum will be likely issued by the end of this month and the new textbooks on revised syllabus will be prepared by the end of this year.

The subject groups for revised ECCE included languages Urdu and English, General Science, General Knowledge, Mathematics and Islamic Studies.

Around 80 curriculum experts from all across the country were working for last few months on preparation of the curriculum.

As per information available with The Nation in the last meeting held on NCC, an education consultant had given a detailed briefing on character-building and attitudinal change.

The consultant pointed out that material would be developed on four thematic areas including attitudes, values, citizenships, disaster risk management and environmental education.

It was also informed in the meeting that curriculum of all subjects from ECCE to Grade V was also being revised.

The minister had also directed the NCC to share the supplementary material in the Inter Provincial Education Ministers Conference (IPEMC).

Official informed The Nation that minister of state actively spearheaded the process of revision of curriculum and issued special guidelines for it. 

The minister directed NCC that revised curriculum should concentrate on ethical values and civil conduct and material should specially focus on health and hygiene, civic sense and global citizenship, environmental protection and energy conservation, democratic culture, national harmony, tolerance and appreciating others’ point of view. The minister in last IPEMC has stated that all the federating units after discussion have concurred to include ECCE, teacher induction process, examination reforms and use of information technology in education, for deliberation in next agenda of IPEMC.

Among the agenda items, the forum discussed non-formal education system and acknowledged its significance as a cost effective mode of increasing the accessibility of education and improving the literacy situation in the country.

The minister had informed that federal government is already operating around 18,000 non-formal schools all across the country and the IPMEC had agreed on the need to improve the capacity of current schools as well as to increase the number of non-formal education setups in the country.

The forum had agreed to promote all four components of non-formal education – community supported primary education, adult literacy, accelerated learning and vocational training – and apportions a reasonable portion of budget for the same in the respective education budgets.