Islamabad: The Ministry of Education and the religious seminaries’ representative forum — Ittehad-e-Tanzemaat Madaaris Pakistan — have reached an agreement on a standard curriculum for the students from grade 1 to grade 5 of conventional and religious schools.

The agreement was reached on August 29 after prolonged debate from both the sides. According to a draft agreement available to Gulf News, all religious seminaries are required to be registered with the Ministry of Education.

The ministry is required to set up regional offices for religious seminaries’ registration. The ministry will be the authorised regulatory body and will be entitled to collect all the information about religious seminaries and, in case of non-registration to close them, as well.

After registration, these religious seminaries will be entitled to get affiliated with the authorised Boards of Intermediate & Secondary Education for their students to appear in Matric and the Intermediate exams. After passing the exams, the students will be enrolled in vocational training institutes and the Ministry of Education will help them in getting admission there.

Another point agreed to is that the Ministry of Education will guide religious seminaries to open their accounts in scheduled banks of Pakistan.

The agreement has been signed by almost all the senior members of the religious seminaries across the country and the senior officials of the Ministry of Education.

Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmoud said in a press conference that reaching the agreement with the religious seminaries is a great breakthrough and a step towards bringing religious schools into mainstream education.

Introducing the uniform curriculum of education was in the manifesto of the incumbent government and in accordance with the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan to end injustices from the country’s education system, he said.

He said the government was in consultation with the provinces including all the schools and Madaaris to prepare a uniform national curriculum.

Mahmoud said the ministry was formulating the national curriculum, keeping in view the standards of all the curriculums of the world to ensure high quality education system in the country.

He said it has been decided that all the religious seminaries will conduct the examinations of class 8th, 10th and 12th on the same pattern as in rest of the schools.