NWFP has rejected the federal Education MinistryÂ’s amendments to the Islamiat curriculum and demanded the deferment of an inter-provincial meeting of education ministers. The ministry had sent a booklet of the amended curriculum to the provinces for approval. Federal Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi directed the provincial departments to publish sample books based on the new curriculum and send them to the Federal Curriculum Wing (FCW) for approval.In a letter to the ministry, the NWFP Education Department has asked it to include the chapters it had discussed with the centre in the amended curriculum, threatening to boycott the inter-provincial meeting scheduled for January 22 if it was not delayed. NWFP Education Secretary Safiullah Khan said the federal authorities had failed to come up with a proper curriculum for the subject. The new curriculum focused only the rights of women and orphans, he said, and the life of Prophet Muhammad (
The federal authorities, he said, had disregarded the provinceÂ’s reservations expressed during the last inter-provincial meeting while amending the curriculum. Javed Ashraf Qazi ruled out postponing the inter-provincial meeting and said if a province did not attend it, it would violate the constitution. The federal government had already accepted more than 85 percent recommendations made by the NWFP. If theyÂ’re not satisfied, there is nothing else we can do, he said.