July 17, 2021
The writer is an independent education researcher and consultant. She has a PhD in Education from Michigan State University.
Last year, on May 20 (2020), the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) issued a notice to the management of Sunrise Publications for printing and selling a booklet series for pre-primary (3-5 year-olds) titled ‘Infant Mathematics’ without obtaining an NOC. Apparently, it included content the PCTB deemed “detrimental for examination and assessment purposes or repugnant to the injunction of Islam or contrary to the integrity, defence or security of Pakistan, or any part of Pakistan or public order or morality” [sic].
Readers should keep in mind that obtaining an NOC has been a requirement de jure for private textbook publishers for years. However, the PCTB’s lack of capacity to review books and issue NOCs in a timely manner meant that this requirement remained de facto unenforced. But every now and then, when an influential person with access makes a complaint to the highest authorities or a random individual files a public interest case (as happened in December 2020 in Altamash versus the Government of Punjab), the PCTB jumps into action and weaponizes the requirement for an NOC. In last year’s instance, it was to save preschoolers from the ‘repugnant act’ of counting three cartoon piglets and all the “threats to the integrity, defence and security of Pakistan '' that carries with it.