LAHORE: A decision has been taken to introduce a separate, 100-mark subject on Global Citizenship for students in Punjab’s schools, with the proposal to make it part of the curriculum from the next academic year with the cooperation of UNICEF.
According to sources, the subject will provide students with awareness of international citizenship, their rights and duties at a global level, and what it means to become a responsible citizen. The subject is likely to be included from Class 4 to Class 8.
The Punjab Examination Commission (PEC) has begun a consultation process with UNICEF to introduce the Global Citizenship subject. All funding for the printing of the subject’s textbooks and related material is also likely to be provided by UNICEF.
According to the Education Department, studying Global Citizenship will increase students’ knowledge of the wider world and help them understand their responsibilities and role at an international level. Through this education, students will be better able to meet the requirements of global citizenship.
Global Citizenship Education is a recognised curricular strand internationally, promoted under UNESCO’s framework and linked to Target 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals. Its standard content spans human rights and children’s rights, sustainable development and climate, diversity and intercultural understanding, digital citizenship and media literacy, and peace and conflict resolution.
In practice, the strongest versions of the subject are less about memorising international institutions than about developing transferable habits: evaluating a claim, recognising a source’s interest, listening to a position one disagrees with, and understanding that local actions have consequences beyond the locality.
The proposal raises a question that Punjab’s education planners will need to answer publicly: what a 100-mark subject displaces.
The instructional week in a Punjab government middle school is already fully committed across languages, mathematics, science, social studies, Islamiat and, in many schools, computer education. Adding an examined subject at the elementary stage means either extending contact hours, reducing time allocated elsewhere, or absorbing the content into an existing subject.
There is a related capacity question. A subject is only as good as the teacher delivering it, and Global Citizenship is pedagogically demanding — it is taught through discussion and enquiry rather than dictation. Introducing it without a serious teacher training programme risks producing another chapter to be memorised for an examination.
That the subject is proposed as a 100-mark examined component, rather than a non-examined activity strand, is significant. Examination gives a subject status and ensures it is actually taught. It also creates pressure toward rote-testable content, which sits awkwardly with the subject’s aims. How PEC designs the assessment will substantially determine what the subject becomes in the classroom.
Punjab’s curriculum has been through repeated revision in recent years, including the rollout of the Single National Curriculum and subsequent adjustments. Teachers’ representative bodies have consistently asked that curricular change be accompanied by adequate lead time, training and timely delivery of textbooks — the three areas where previous reforms encountered the most friction at school level.
No formal notification has yet been issued. The proposal remains at the consultation stage.
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