October 08, 2006

IN situations of rehabilitation after a natural disaster, there is an opportunity to rebuild the education system to keep away from the weaknesses and faults present prior to the disaster and to promote sustainable educational development. The processes of restoration may provide an opportunity to reconceptualise curriculum and methodology over the longer term through curriculum development work and strengthening systems of in-service and pre-service teacher training. According to experts, the period of rebuilding needs to allow for the reorientation of textbooks, to remove messages leading to ethnic or religious division, hatred and intolerance and to provide positive models of peaceful ways of conflict resolution. In addition, teachers need to provide a children-centred learning environment for psychosocial and academic rehabilitation.

After the disastrous October 8, 2005, earthquake in northern Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, many national and international NGOs set up their camps in the earthquake-affected areas and helped the people in Balakot, Mansehra, Batagram, Muzaffarabad and Bagh. In the beginning, however, the priority of the NGOs and government was to ensure the survival of the people and to provide psychological support, but the focus should now be on establishing a sound educational infrastructure.

Teachers can not only provide academic support but also social and psychological assistance to the students and community. It is a common observation that the organisations involved feel that everything including teaching methodologies, classroom environment, children rights, community involvement and textbooks were good and up to the mark before earthquake, without considering the previous educational policies in these areas. But one finds that material like teaching kits, students kits and textbooks are still lying locked in boxes and these boxes are used as tables to serve tea in staff rooms. The reason behind not using this material is a lack of training and its irrelevance.

Limited knowledge of teaching activities, the teaching environment, a teacher- and subject-centred approach and a feeling of uncertainty, confusion and insecurity add to the unwillingness of teachers to try new teaching methods. The education department and schools have no well-defined structures for helping teachers learn from the everyday experience of teaching. Change comes from an awareness of needs and interest. In the earthquake-affected areas, teachers are faced with certain problems which, if taken into consideration, can provide a strong base for organisations and agencies to provide meaningful and relevant professional support.

First of all, there is little or no appropriate teaching learning space available to the teachers in the earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan. Consequently, the teachers cannot leave the material in schools due to security reasons, thus taking them home daily which is not feasible in these mountainous areas. Also, they do not know how to use this material. Then there is Early Childhood Education (ECE), a new concept in Pakistan, on which there is little contextual research available. Due to a lack of teachers, the multigrade system is compulsory in a majority of primary schools. Unfortunately, teachers in the earthquake-affected areas do not have multigrade training. Thus, they do not believe in its application and utility.

Teachers are also unaware of the Child Rights Convention (CRC) and they deal with children quite like the way they were dealt with in the pre-earthquake scenario. Discrimination on the basis of caste and gender is a common practice in Bagh and Muzaffarabad. In addition, the children are exposed to the severe social, psychological and physical harms.

Also, the alliance and collaboration between the school and community has yet to take place in these areas. Lack of awareness in the community about their roles and responsibilities regarding education and other social sector reforms add to the worries of relief organisations. The education department is reluctant to legalise the role of the community in educational development owing to their past experiences. This split between two important stakeholders is negatively affecting the efforts made by relief organisations in public sector education.

Sadly, there is a common misconception in the earthquake-affected areas that children with impairment cannot learn. Teachers reject the idea of inclusive education as they are not trained in learning styles, multiple intelligences, and individual differences. Their focus is the weakness of the child instead of his/her strengths.

Interestingly enough, the organisations involved in these areas have limited knowledge about the local culture. Most of them depend on local or national translators which cause two problems — first, local people are not trained in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; secondly, locals usually take donors and relief organisations to their own areas, depriving the areas that are more deserving of aid.

Research shows that the working and social patterns within a school and community have considerable influence on the quality of change in education. The cultural perspective is essential to an understanding of how meaningful outcomes might be achieved from an intervention in public sector education. Looking at the above issues regarding educational reforms, one can conclude that teacher training and professional development is very crucial for the psychosocial rehabilitation of the people, in general, and children, in particular. On- the-job and contextual teacher training is the most appropriate solution to the problem. In addition, the northern areas of Pakistan do provide some practical evidence of quality multigrade teaching, teacher resource centres, active school management committees and inclusive education. Thus, geographically and culturally, the northern areas are same as the earthquake-affected areas.

Any individual or organisation intending to train teachers in the earthquake-hit areas must understand the ground realities regarding the needs, local issues, interest and capabilities of teachers. Need analysis is the most important step for meaningful designing and delivery of training. The first and foremost focus of training should be encouraging creativity among teachers through practical means. Teaching heories is a waste of time.

The training agencies need to present research-based evidence of their competency in multigrade teaching and inclusive education, among other things. The training must be divided into four parts. Part one should focus on the building of knowledge of teachers. This should be local and in accordance with the culture of target areas. Part two should be based on the skills of teaching, material development and use of teaching kits. Trainees must be involved in the establishment of teacher resource centres. The teacher learning material should be locally developed. In addition, trainees should be convinced of the need and utility of multigrade teaching. Part three should focus on the workplace. The last part should be the application of knowledge-based skills in the classroom because theory is usually easy to read or hear but is complicated when it comes to application.

Recent studies on the implementation of education and workplace trainings highlight the importance of redesigning teacher training programs. The implementation of these reforms require that educators have a substantial understanding of reform principles and the ways in which work-based and school-based learning can be used to enhance the curriculum and instruction. It is critical that institutions of teacher education rethink their vision for teacher education programmes to align training with the workplace and “authentic” curricula. To inform this new vision, it is also essential to understand how promising professional development programmes have affected student learning and career development.

Another key consideration in reforming teacher preparation lies in understanding how teacher education agencies can support related institutional change. To succeed in developing a framework for a “new” teacher education model, we must also understand the institutional context and commitment of the teacher trainers and teachers. The fact is most organisations supporting education in the earthquake-affected areas have yet to embrace the principles of contextualised learning and connecting school and work in their teacher training programmes.

To conclude, all organisations who have taken the responsibility of training teachers must be asked to plan, reflect and justify the reasons for selected courses of action. Furthermore, the training agency must have a research-based approach supported by authentic evidence of their previous achievements in teacher education. n

The writer is a freelance contributor

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