KARACHI, June 10: A sizable number of women and some men from all walks of life gathered on the lawns of the Pakistan Montessori Association on Monday to pay homage to Mrs Gool Khorshed Minwalla, who died on May 20.

The memorial meeting was organized jointly by the Pakistan Montessori Association and the Montessori Teacher Training Centre, the organizations she founded to spread the message of the renowned educationist, Dr Maria Montessori.

Best known for her deep commitment to education in Pakistan, Mrs Minwalla commanded great esteem and was widely respected and admired for her contribution to the development of the Montessori system in Pakistan.

She attended a course in Madras in 1939, where she was a student of Dr Maria Montessori. After Independence, Mrs Minwalla set up the first Montessori school in the country in 1949. It was her vision that prompted her to set up the Montessori Association which is affiliated to the Association Montessori Internationale based in the Netherlands.

The PMA (later through the MTTC) has been conducting courses every year to train Montessori teachers. The 34th course ended last week and nearly 4,000 Montessori teachers in Pakistan owe their training entirely to Mrs Minwalla’s foresight and commitment.

Speaker after speaker paid tributes to this great woman for whom the child came first. Following the principle of her mentor, she emphasized the importance of encouraging the child to discover himself and allowing the flowering of his mind.

She got fully involved in the Montessori movement and was internationally respected for her knowledge, dynamism and devotion. She was invited on numerous occasions to serve as the external examiner in different countries, a position assigned to Montessori teachers of great standing and integrity.

Messages of condolence and tributes were received from places as diverse as Canada, the US, San Diego, Italy and India. These were read out at the meeting.

It pointed to Gool Aunty’s (as most speakers fondly referred to her) commitment to multifarious social causes that the representatives of seven different organizations spoke on the occasion. It was her humanism and the restless soul in her (to quote Anita Ghulam Ali who spoke in her personal capacity and not as the Sindh Minister of Education, as she stressed), which drove Mrs Minwalla to contribute to the working of these organizations.

Apart from the PMA and the MTTC, her role in APWA, the Theosophical Society, the Mama Parsi School, the Karachi Zorastrian Bano Mandal, the Poor Family Welfare Society and the Ida Rieu School was outstanding and unparalleled.

It was on account of the leadership provided by her that these organizations have made some contribution to the cause of education by founding schools and literacy centres.

As Ms Bashiruddin, one of the speakers who had attended the first course arranged by Mrs Minwalla, said, each and every Montessori teacher in Pakistan owes a debt to this great woman.