05 November 2004	Friday	21 Ramazan 1425

KARACHI, Nov 4: The Sindh Minister for Education and Literacy Department, Dr Hamida Khuhro, has called upon the concerned to streamline the training of teachers and leadership development plan in order to enhance the capacity of teaching manpower for quality education.

She said this while presiding over the first meeting of the working group to review and reshape the primary education syllabus at the Decentralized Elementary Education Project's (DEEP), head office.

The working group was recently constituted by the Sindh education minister comprising noted educationists, teacher training experts from the private sector, and education officers.

Dr Hamida asked the Secretary Education, Mohammed Hashim Leghari, to prepare a comprehensive plan simultaneously for teachers and leadership training programmes to enhance the skills of the teaching cadre, especially that they attain proficiency in the English language.

On the occasion, the working group reviewed the curricula especially textbooks being taught at the primary level, and for the development of an early childhood education system in each and every school of the province.

The participants especially experts from private schools criticized the methodology being taught at government-run schools, and viewed that years old teaching methods could not meet requirements of the present era.

The provincial education minister also ordered the revival of the integrated course being taught in Class-3 at primary level, and told the concerned to simplify the syllabus and curricula with special emphasis and more concentration on the mother tongue, English and simple mathematics.

She said that through the teaching of English from primary, the child of Class-5 must be able to read, write and speak English, adding that teachers should have training based skills to teach Islamic ideas, geography and history to children of Class-5 but without books.

During the meeting, some participants complained about the lack of teaching quality among the master trainers.

Dr Hamida in this regard directed for imparting quality training to master trainers. She further asked the concerned to make available drawing papers, colour pencils, erasers etc to every child enrolled at government-run schools.

On this demand, some participants announced that their private schools would provide drawing papers and colour pencils to the children of government-run schools.

The minister also asked the secretary education to make proposals on the suggestions that came from various platforms that the academic year be started from August 1 instead of April 1. She also directed for reshaping weekly school timetables.

Among others, Secretary Education Mohammad Hashim Leghari, Special Secretary Syed Sohail Akber, Deputy Secretary Mohammed Ali Mangrio, Director Bureau of Curriculum Manzoor Bhutto attended the meeting.

While Fatima Shahabuddin from SPELT, Safia Shaikh of Bay View Academic, Rumana Hussain of the Human Rights Education Programme, Seema Malik of Teachers Resource Centre, Yasmeen Banu from AKEP, Abida Kamal of Habib Girls School, and Farhat Mansoor of School Management attended the working group meeting. - PPI