KARACHI, May 23 : The second phase of the training of about 3200 teachers all over Sindh, under the Sindh Middle School Project (MSP), began on Thursday.

During the phase 78 master trainers from the rural areas of the province would be trained to further impart teaching techniques to some 13105 more teachers.

A total of 78 master trainers have been selected from nine city districts of the province— Sukkur, Ghotki, Khairpur, Nuashero Feroz, Nawabshah, Larkana, Shikarpur, Jacobabad and Dadu— and are being trained in two groups. Participants of the training have been selected in equal number from each district.

The first leg of the 10-day long training of master trainers of head teachers is being launched at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Sukkur, under the supervision of project manager Mrs Talat Jaskani and project officer Mr Rais Ahmed.

Mrs Talat Jaskani said that a team of nine foreign-qualified and experienced officials of the Sindh education department had been invited to conduct the training of master trainers. She added that the team members had been selected from various cities of Sindh and consisted of district officers, headmistresses and headmasters, account officers, supervisors of elementary education and ADOs.

The program titled “Training of Teachers and Organizers in Profession” has been initiated by the education department under the Sindh Middle Schools Project (MSP) with financial assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Mrs Jaskani informed that some 96 educational officials had been chosen from various districts of the province to look after the Academic Supervision Program for training of headmasters and headmistresses. In the first phase of those district educational officials would train 136 master trainers who, in turn, would impart training to some 2084 teachers in the next phase.

All the phases of the “Training of Teachers and Organizers in Profession” started simultaneously all over Sindh as per the decision taken at an educational conference held in July 4-5, 2001, she said and added that the ADB management had already released funds for the first phase of the Teachers Training Program.

In the latter phase of program, namely the Training for Middle School Teachers, which has also been divided into two phases, 480 master trainers would receive training in linguistic subjects including Urdu, Sindhi and English, Social Studies, Science, Mathematics and some other subjects, she apprised.

The Teachers Training Program would commence shortly after the training of master trainers and they would further impart training to some 13105 teachers, she said.

She further said that during another program, titled Development of Achievement Testing, teachers who had received training from abroad on modern methods of teaching would impart training to 120 teachers, who in turn would supervise the latter teachers training programmes.

The duration of all these teachers training programmes at the lower level is two weeks and their participants are from all the districts of Sindh. All these programmes started simultaneously on Oct 2, 2001.

In addition to these projects the Sindh government, in collaboration with the ADB, has started another project to provide stipends to female students studying in 6th, 7th and 8th classes and female students of HSC part-I&II.—PPI