KARACHI, Dec 24: The 10-day workshop on “English language teaching for government school teachers” concluded on Wednesday with award of certificates to the participant.
In all, 33 school teachers were trained as master trainers with the objective to enhance their knowledge in teaching methodology in English Language Teaching (ELT). The workshop was a step towards capacity building of the existing professional development infrastructure, involving local experts, and was necessary to reduce reliance on outside support, commented a few of the teachers.
The teachers’ training programme was jointly organized by the Sindh Education Department, Education Sector Reform Assistance Programme (ESRA) funded by the USAID and the Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (SPELT) at Government Elementary College of Education (Female), Hussainabad.
Speaking as chief guest at the certificate awarding ceremony, Sindh Education Secretary Ghulam Ali Pasha said that the government was emphasizing on the training of in-service teachers, including 97,000 primary school teachers.
Under an extensive programme, about 13,000 untrained teachers would be imparted training in one year, which would surely contribute improving the quality of education at government-run schools in the province, he added.
He informed the audience that about 204 primary and secondary schools would be strengthened during the next two to three years to make them fit for imparting education entirely in English language. The teachers, who would be trained by the master trainers prepared during the workshop, would give ELT training to teachers at district level. He said that the master trainers would certainly prove an asset to the department in running the English medium schools.
The Sindh coordinator of ESRA, Zahid Afridi, said that under a four-year project, his organization would give training to about 53,000 school teachers in Sindh and Balochistan. He said that the master trainers of this workshop were going to provide ELT training to 1,120 primary school teachers in Thatta, Hyderabad, Khairpur and Sukkur from Dec 29 to Jan 29.
The SPELT Director, Zakia Sarwar, who was also the facilitator of the workshop, held the workshop pioneering one with respect to consistency and nature of training.
Among others, the coordinator of the programme from Provincial Institute of Teachers Education, Sindh, Saghir Sheikh; ESRA Component leader, Fawad Shams; Principal of Hussainabad elementary college, Maqsooda Jahan; and master trainers, Samina Yaqub and Aziz Ahmad also spoke on the occasion.
