PESHAWAR: Dissatisfied with the performance of the state-run teachers training institutions, the Elementary and Secondary Education (E&SE) Department is going to outsource teachers’ training partially to a reputed private organisation, according to sources.

“We are making all efforts to provide best training to the teachers for the bright future of students enrolled in government schools,” additional secretary E&SE Qaiser Alam Khan told Dawn. The teachers’ trainings would likely be outsourced to a reputed organisation having skills in imparting training, particularly in English like Beaconhouse and British Council, the additional secretary said.

Sources said that the decision of outsourcing teachers’ trainings to a private organisation had put a question mark on the performance of about 20 Regional Institutes for Teachers Education (RITEs) across the province. Of the total RITEs, 11 are for male teachers and nine for female teachers with a large number of trainers working there, they said.

Provincial Institute for Teachers Education director Jamaluddin said that around 23,000 teachers of primary schools would be trained on teaching English to grade-2 students by the private organisation whose selection was in process. The same organisation would also train the teachers about teaching English and Mathematics of Grade-9, 10, 11th and 12th, he said.

It’s contrary to PTI’s slogan of strengthening govt institutions, says educationist

Provincial Minister for E&SE Mohammad Atif Khan told Dawn that pre- and post-training assessment of the teachers would be conducted by the selected private organisation. “We are also thinking about the reward and punishment system for teachers for good and poor performance during the training,” he said, adding that it would force the teachers to take interest in the training.

Qaiser Alam said that the teachers would be expected to perform in their respective schools according to trainings being imparted to them for a few weeks. He said that the trained teachers would return for three to four days to the same training institutions for evaluation by their trainers.

The outsourcing of teachers training was being done as an experiment, a senior official of the education department told Dawn. If the result is positive and trainings are imparted within a reasonable fund, then the possibility of outsourcing the entire teachers training could not be ruled out, Mr Alam said.

He said that for the first time the incumbent provincial government had allocated Rs800 million for the training and capacity building of teachers. He said that the donor agencies and NGOs also used to arrange trainings for the teachers.

“I don’t understand why the education department is outsourcing the teachers training to a private organisation,” an educationist working on an important position in the education department told Dawn. He said that it would paralyse the RITEs in the province which was contrary to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s slogan of strengthening state institutions.

“The RITEs have a lot of administrative issues and deficiencies which need to be resolved instead of hiring private organisations for teachers trainings,” he said.

The senior educationist said that in 2004-05 the education department had selected 40 teachers for sending them to the United States to get training about how to teach and develop curricula. Unfortunately, on their return from US, none of them were ever used for teachers training or curricula development rather they were again posted in schools, he said.

He said that a huge amount of government funds were spent on such teachers, but their services were not used accordingly.

Published in Dawn, September 29th , 2014