Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 20 July 2015 to Question 7327, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policy of promoting religious tolerance and respect for diversity of the findings on pages 10 and 11 of the report of the US Commission on International Freedom entitled Connecting the dots: education and religious discrimination in Pakistan, published in 2011.

DFID’s education programmes in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces support the implementation of Pakistan’s 2006 reformed curriculum which teaches religious tolerance and respect for diversity.

The UK has worked alongside the Government of Pakistan who have taken significant steps to update textbooks and replace any content that promotes prejudice and discrimination against religious or other minorities.

Independent evaluations in 2007 and 2013 confirmed this curriculum to be based on values of democracy, pluralism and peace aimed at educating students to be able to think critically about these issues.