Review of Single National Curriculum with Perspective of the Education of Children with Visual Impairment at Primary Level in Punjab Pakistan

Abstract

Purpose: The Single National Curriculum (SNC) is one of the basic items of manifesto of ruling party in Pakistan.  The academic capability of Children with Visual Impairment (CWVI) is usually considered as that of non-disabled students due to their good cognitive skills. Directorate of Special Education Punjab adopted the same curriculum for CWVI. This study is an effort to identify the standards, benchmarks and SLOs which are difficult to accomplish for CWVI. It was a qualitative study by method and curriculum review/document analysis technique was applied to study the SNC. The complete curriculum of seven key learning areas at early childhood level and following six subjects of English, Urdu, Mathematics, General Knowledge, Islamiat and General Science were studied at primary level. The data was retrieved from the website of National Curriculum Council, Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, Islamabad, Government of Pakistan. Collected information was coded, major themes were derived and interpreted. Results revealed that a large number of standards, benchmarks and Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) were easy to accomplish for CWVI as non-disabled children but many standards, benchmarks and SLOs were not easy to accomplish for CWVI due to their visual limitations and lack of  sufficient need based support. The study recommended that proper adaptations, modifications and accommodations should be made for CWVI especially to attain the geometry, science and geography related standards, benchmarks and SLOs including adaptations proposed by Directorate of Special Education Punjab. Pictorial representations and visual tasks should be substituted with some other learning tasks for CWVI.