January 23, 2006	Monday	Zilhaj 22, 1426

KARACHI, Jan 22: The Sindh education department in consultation with the district governments has launched varied initiatives to enhance participation rate of children at the primary level. This was stated by Sindh Education Minister Dr Hamida Khuhro on Saturday, while speaking at the graduation ceremony of the advanced diploma programme in educational leadership and management and primary education-2005, organized by the Institute of Educational Development, Aga Khan University.

She said that the government was fully cognizant that despite making substantial investment in the human capital development, the pace of change had been slow.

“To accelerate the momentum of development through active involvement of the stakeholders at the grassroots level, the present education system has been developed for strengthening its capacity and efficacy of the relevant programmes,” she said.

With the very objective, she said the Sindh government had established the Provincial Institute of Teacher Education (PITE) as an apex institute in the area of teachers’ education, research and policy studies.

The minister further said that the government had also planned to build capacity of teacher education institutions in the province and expected the AKU-IED to continue providing technical assistance to these centres besides its assistance to the public sector in developing informed policies.

On the occasion, she also acknowledged that 646 government school teachers had benefited from various AKU-IED’s programmes, during the last few years.

She mentioned that 28 Sindh government schools’ teachers managed to do MEd, 48 secured diplomas in leadership and management and 33 others secured diplomas in curriculum development.

Dr Khuhro referred that the AKU-IED through the financial assistance of USAID had been working as a national partner with Research Triangle Institute-Education Sector Reform Assistance (ESRA) to institutionalize teacher education at the grassroots level by conducting cluster-based monitoring programmes in four districts of Sindh and five districts of Balochistan.

The ceremony was also addressed by Aga Khan University President Shamsh Kassim Lakha, AKU-IED Director Dr Mohammad Memon, Ayesha Bashiruddin. Proceedings were conducted by Ms Rozina.—APP