THE world is measuring learning outcomes of students in seven domains but Pakistan is still regrettably ignoring most of the spheres for assessing students’ learning outcomes.

The Learning Metrics Task Force (LMTF), spearheaded by the Centre of Universal Education and the Unesco Institute of Statistics, had identified seven domains for learning and the measurement of learning outcomes: physical well-being; social and emotional; culture andthe arts; literacy and communication; learning approaches and cognition; numeracy and mathematics; and science and technology.

Educationists at a strategic consultation, organised by Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi in collaboration with the Punjab School Education Department, at school education department’s committee room last week were unanimous in saying that various public and private sector agencies engaged in measuring learning outcomes of children were not looking at seven domains but only two of them – literacy & communication; and numeracy & mathematics.

They said the purpose of imparting education would go down the drain, if its outcomes were not measured and improvements be made to groom students according to the objectives of the education. They believed that giving feedback for consensus building and contributing substantively to the recommendations of the technical working groups and task force were highly imperative.

Giving a presentation about LMTF’s global vision for measuring learning, ITA’s Research Associate Sahar Saeed stated a robust measurement of students’ learning outcomes at the global and national levels were critical to improving education policy and ultimately learning levels. She said the task force engaged high-level political actors, technical experts and practitioners in a year-long global consultation process in order to build consensus around three questions: what learning is important for all children and youth; how should learning outcomes be measured and how could measurement of learning improve education quality.

In the Phase-I, she said the task force looked at what learning was important for all children and youth, the Phase-II looked at how should learning outcomes be measured at the global and national levels. In Phase-III, she said the task force would devise strategy that how could measurement of learning improve education quality.

Punjab Education Assessment System’s (PEAS) Dr Nasir Mahmood presented findings of public school Class-IV students’ learning assessment on the basis of year 2002 curriculum in 2011. He said the assessment revealed that Grade-IV students’ performance was better in mathematics and poor in Urdu.

Comparing 2011 results with previous assessments, Dr Mahmood said the students’ performance had improved steadily in Urdu between 2005 and 2011. He said students’ performance in mathematics had slightly decreased in 2006 as compared to 2005 and further decreased in 2008 before it increased substantially in 2011. “In all previous assessments in 2005, 2006 and 2008, students were performing at the poor level of proficiency in both subjects but in 2011, they improved their performance to the basic level,” he said. In 2011 assessment, hesaid, girls performed better than boys in social studies and Urdu, while boys performed better in mathematics.

Dr Mahmood said the assessment showed that students’ performance regressed as the school type progressed from primary to higher secondary – because resources and attention for Grade-IV students declined as school level rose. He said primary school had shown better performance. Overall performance of urban students was better than rural students in all subjects.

Directorate of Staff Development’s Azmat Siddique spoke about directorate’s assessment of students as well as teachers and consequent training programmes for teachers.

Founder and director of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) Dr Adibul Hasan Rizvi has said that Pakistan has the world’s second highest number of children with no access to school and the third highest number of illiterate adults and still it is spending only 2.3 per cent of the GDP on education.

He was delivering his keynote address at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) 25th convocation on Saturday.

Over 800 degrees were conferred on the graduates in various majors and disciplines from all three schools of the university.

Dr Rizvi said some 27 million children of school-going age out of total 85 million children have no access to school education, while 49.5 million adults are illiterate in Pakistan. “It is the poverty and economic compulsions which drove the mothers to rent their babies to beggars for small amount of money.”

Regrettably, Dr Rizvi said the health sector in Pakistan was no better. He said there were 0.6 hospitals available for a population of 100,000, with 27 registered doctors per 100,000. He said the country was facing highest infant and maternal mortality rates. He said there were about 87,000 deaths every year of children from preventable diseases like polio, pneumonia, Hepatitis B, diphtheria, measles, tetanus, TB and still country’s health budget was as low as 0.8 per cent of the GDP.

Urging students to own the philosophy that every human being had a right to access health and education free with dignity, Dr Rizvi called upon the LUMS graduates to say that they were “born to make impossible possible.”

Earlier, LUMS Vice-Chancellor Dr Adil Najam, who will leave the university on June 30 following his resignation, said the LUMS graduates had now reached a network of 10,000 students while the financial assistance at the varsity stood at Rs350 million.

An evening earlier on Friday, the traditional Graduate Night dinner was held. At the ceremony, announcements of the NMF Medals recipients were made. Graduates from the Suleman Dawood School of Business (SDSB) achieving distinction in various business subject areas were presented with 10 Corporate Gold medals. This was followed by the presentation of the Deans’ Honour List plaques to 136 (111 from Undergraduate stream and 25 from Graduate) graduating students from all three schools for excellence in academic performance.

THE Lahore American School (LAS) has been granted re-accreditation for a seven-year term by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commissions on Elementary and Secondary Schools (MSA-CESS). The MSA accreditation is recognised world-wide as an indicator of educational quality, trustworthiness and commitment to ongoing school improvement.

Announcing the award, MSA-CESS president Henry G. Cram, Jr., Ed.D. has stated that the association knows how important it is to parents that their children are attending a great school that will give them an excellent education and care. He acknowledged that the LAS had passed a months-long, rigorous process for re-accreditation wherein it was evaluated on account of various factors including student performance, quality and continuity of the school’s leadership and governance, condition of facilities, finances and fiscal stability,effectiveness of student services, health and safety, staffing, and long-range planning.

The LAS is an independent, co-education day school offering pre-school through 12th grade. The college preparatory programme is consistent with similar programmes in the United States, but students are from around the world.

— mansoormalik173@hotmail.com