Comparative Analysis of South Asian Primary English Curricula: Evaluating National Frameworks in Pakistan (2020), India (2023), Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh (2021)

The current study presents a comparative analysis of national curriculum frameworks of Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh for English Language education at pre-primary and primary levels. It helped gaining the idea how does each country conceptualize the learning of English Language at early stages through curriculum standards, pedagogy, skill development and assessment. A mixed-method approach helped combining qualitative content analysis with quantitative text-mining techniques e.g. Bag-of-Words and cosine similarity. Competency-based design, emphasis on oral skills, learner-centered pedagogy and formative assessment were among commonalities whereas the difference was among thematic areas; the focus of India is on multilingualism, Pakistan’s on ethical literacy, Bangladesh’s on intercultural competence and Sri Lanka’s on ethnic harmony and environmental awareness. These differences present unique cultural and political contexts but share a regional commitment to inclusivity and sustainable development. The study proposes a practical model for regional and policy harmonization through cross- national curriculum research.