Naeem Yousaf Gill , executive director of the Catholic Bishop's National Commission for Justice and Peace, addresses a press conference at Lahore Press Club on July 20. Catholic bishops have appealed to Pakistan's government to stop the imposition of a revised school curriculum making Islamic instruction a significant part of compulsory subjects, including languages and social sciences.
He further pointed out that the SNC doesn’t carry the required national consensus and clearly violates the rights of the provinces granted by the 18th constitutional amendment that devolves the subject of education to the provinces. Educationists fear that Khan’s inclination toward"madrasas" may cause the loss of a student's ability to reason independently from the dictates of Islamic thought.
Under the new curriculum, religious education replaces ethics and will include separate books on seven minority religions including Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Baha’i and Kalasha.