January 18, 2003	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 14, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 17: The government intends to end class system that exists in the education sector by providing equal opportunities to all children studying in public, private schools or madaris, the education minister, Zobaida Jalal, said here on Friday.

She was speaking at the closing ceremony of a five-day teachers’ training workshop organized by the Children’s Resource International (CRI). About 200 principals, teachers and administrators of 92 CRI partner schools attended the workshop on Early Childhood Methodology.

Ms Jalal said the school environment should be made attractive for the children in a way that every child should be happy in going to school and have the best possible opportunity of education. “Each child should be growing up as a resource for the country,” she said.

There were approximately 18 million children between the ages of five and nine in Pakistan and therefore we need more efforts to focus on younger end of the population, she added.

The minister said: “If we want to change the attitude of children towards learning, and make them independent life-long learners, then we have to invest in the teaching practices, classroom environment, parental participation and community involvement.”

She said early childhood interventions were the foundation for children’s development which gave them a very solid start in the most formative years of their life. The school environment and the teacher’s attitude could make or break a child’s personality, she added.

Ms Jalal said the government was committed to new ideas and methodologies for quality improvement and early interventions. Early childhood education was an important component of the education reforms package that was being implemented in all the four provinces of Pakistan at the district level, she added.

To facilitate such programmes, the government has created pre-primary grades in all the schools.

Zobaida Jalal was of the view that there were two aspects to the debate on education; quality of education and early interventions in school methodology.

She said quality was a multi-dimensional term and the government had to match it to the rapidly changing environment of our society and that of the world.