The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government has agreed to make Quranic Studies a required subject for intermediate and matriculation. This choice was made in accordance with Peshawar High Court directives (PHC).
In the 2023 annual Matriculation and Intermediate examinations, a 75-mark examination for the subject will also be added to the list of already-existing subjects, bringing the total number of marks from 1,100 to 1,225.
In place of Quranic Studies, students from the province’s religious minority communities will study an additional ethics-based course. After this addition, there will be five required subjects instead of the current four.
The 75-mark paper that will be part of the 2023 annual exams is something that the Boards of Education have also asked the Directorate of Education for recommendations on.
The provincial education department has also issued recommendations for the subject’s instruction in colleges and urged the higher education department to put this decision into practise.
In KP, Quranic Studies are already taught and learned in classes ranging from kindergarten to eighth grade. A request was made to the PHC for the topic to be deemed mandatory and for a formal exam to be given on it. In response to the appeal, the court recently decided to make the topic mandatory.
