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| May 12, 2008 | Monday | Jamadi-ul-Awwal 6, 1429 |
A difference that a trained teacher can make
GUJRANWALA, May 11: A majority of dropouts and poor results in exams are due to the presence of unprofessional teachers in classrooms but a little has been invested in teacher education in Pakistan.
Salma Aziz, project officer of Secondary Level Mentoring (SLM), told the media in a briefing about a six-day teachers’ training workshop, here on Sunday.
"Only professional and trained teachers can make classroom a pleasant place for students which will ultimately accelerate the process of learning," said Salma, who has trained over 3,500 teachers across Punjab in workshops arranged by the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF).
The team of the SLM will train up to 80 teachers from the schools of disadvantaged areas. The workshop, which begins on Monday (today), will conclude on Saturday. She said the SLM programme was striving hard to change the attitude of teachers so that they discarded obsolete teaching methodologies and learn new techniques in teaching.
She said the SLM applied new teaching methodologies in its workshops like the use of 3-D animations, practical demonstration, role play/simulation, use of mnemonics, group/ pair work etc for better understanding and retention of concepts.
"The SLM emphasises on conceptual clarity, discourages rote-learning and promote high order thinking," she said. The intensive workshop will be held on physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics in collaboration with GIFT.
She said PEF Managing Director Dr. Allah Bakhsh Malik believed that teachers training at primary level was important as it involved creativity, innovation and reflective thinking but at secondary level knowledge gap existed which impacted the quality of high education.
Huma Rizvi, in charge of the Quality Assurance Test department, said trainings by the SLM had positive impact on QAT results of students in all over Punjab. "There is a gradual improvement in QAT results which is very encouraging," Huma added.
Gift Principal Akhtar Janjua said his institute would cooperate for such healthy activities.— Imran Saleem
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