Lord Hylton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-10-18.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of reported criticisms that official school textbooks used in Pakistan contain references capable of provoking religious prejudice and hatred, whether they plan to discuss with the government of Pakistan the content of those textbooks, in particular those used in Punjab and Sindh provinces.
Lord Bates
The majority of the Department of International Development’s (DFID) education programmes in Pakistan support the work of the Governments of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. Both governments are aiming to improve the quality of education, including through reviewing and replacing text books, implementing Pakistan’s 2006 reformed curriculum, and improving teaching standards through regular and better quality teacher training.
Independent evaluations of the reformed curriculum have confirmed it to be based on values of democracy, pluralism, and peace. UK development programmes are assisting these provincial government efforts. In Sindh, we do not work with Government but rather we partner with the low cost private sector to get more poor children into school. So far 121,343 previously out of school children in the poorest areas of Sindh are now being educated.
