KARACHI: The Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (SPELT) celebrated 35 years of empowering teachers with a gathering held at the SPELT House here on Tuesday.

Taking it also as an opportunity to look ahead to the future in teaching, a panel discussion on the topic of ‘Equity and access to quality education: opportunities and challenges’ was held with eminent educationists sharing their views.

Introducing the topic, Siham Gheewala said that there is a misconception that equity and equality are the same thing, which they are not. “Equality is giving equally and equity means giving everyone equal chances of success,” she said.

Adding to that Ameena Saiyid said that equity is about needs, values, what we are taught and what we bring to our set of values. “Twenty-first century skills aim to create equity,” she said before illustrating her thoughts by describing a couple of quite meaningful cartoons that she had seen.

Educators reflect on 35 years of SPELT

She said that there were three children of different heights trying to view a match from over a fence by standing on wooden cartons making the taller kid even taller, the middle one able to watch too and the shortest of the three lose interest in the game because even after standing on the carton he was unable to see over the fence. In the next scenario, the tall boy had given his box to the shortest boy as he could see over the fence even without it. And then the shortest one had two to stand on enabling him to watch also.

Picking up from there Michael Houlgate, British Council’s director for Sindh and Balochistan, said that all young people should have access to education and the British Council wants to support them. “Instead of giving more than one box to the shortest child, we would rather have removed the fence altogether,” he smiled, adding that the British Council wanted to address issues of equity and equality and equip young people with the skills that they need. He spoke at length about their work to get out of school children into school by empowering communities, training youth to become education activists, reaching out to seniors with influence within communities and working with teachers and schools to provide a wholesome environment to retain the students.

Dr Mohammad Memon, chairman of the Hyderabad examination board, meanwhile said that the teachers today needed to make themselves role models. He also stressed treating all children, girls as well as boys, equally. “Resources should be balanced to create an enabling environment and not create discrimination of any kind. The teachers can really make a difference here,” he said.

Shahnaz Wazir Ali pointed out that the budget allocations for professional development were not enough. “We should create conditions where the teachers can learn. We have not been able to create such conditions. Teacher development must connect to student development,” she said.

Sadeqa Salahuddin shared her experience of taking over a government school for improving education there in Sindh’s interior. “There were 36 teachers there and while 10 would be engaged in teaching at one time 26 had nothing to do. It was because of a lack of structure there. So we tried to develop an informal structure there where junior teachers would learn from senior teachers about their experiences with the students and lesson plans in their free time. If you look at our education policies, they seem to lack vision,” she added.

Earlier, reminiscing about SPELT’s nascent years, Zakia Sarwar said there was a dire need for a forum for professional development of teachers. “The journey started in July of 1984 with a few dedicated teachers stepping forth to help improve English teaching in Pakistan by training other teachers,” she said.

Fouzia Shamim, Rehmat Ibrahim and Zohra Yusuf also spoke.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2019