September 23, 2006	Saturday	Sha'aban 29, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: Partnerships between Pakistani and UK schools under the British Council’s School Links programme were increasing rapidly and 173 schools in Pakistan were now a part of this programme.

These partnerships were a powerful and exciting way of bringing a global dimension into the lives of young people and their teachers. Successful partnerships had a profound and lasting impact on those involved.

This was observed here on Friday at a workshop organised by the British Council Islamabad and conducted by the National School Links. The scope of workshop was to provide guidance to schools that were part of the School Links Programme on building effective partnerships.

The one-day workshop included an evaluation meeting to share success stories and evaluate the impact of the programme as well as provide guidance to schools that wished to apply for Department for International Development (DFID) Global School Partnership grants which enabled teachers to visit partner schools in the UK.

The workshop was attended by teachers from Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Wah as well as by a few teachers from Jhelum, Peshawar, Mansehra and Swat schools.

Teachers were given guidance, lots of valuable ideas for project work as well as web links as future reference to the School Links Programme information. Various case studies and projects made by other schools were also discussed among the participating schools.

The British Council’s school links programme encourages schools to embed a global dimension in their curriculum, which is seen as a way of extending students views of the world by exploring their perceptions and helping them recognise and think critically about different cultural, economic and political perspectives.

The schools that were a part of the programme were working on a variety of projects including curriculum related themes like global citizenship, conflict resolution, diversity, child rights, social justice, values and perceptions and sustainable development.