KARACHI, Oct 10: The buildings of over 179 middle schools, planned to be established under the Sindh Middle School Project, have been completed and recommendations have been forwarded to the Education Department for the appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff at these institutions.
The establishment of middle schools in the province had been started by the Sindh Middle School Project (SMSP), with financial assistance provided by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which has already been providing funds to Pakistan for a number of educational projects, including training of teachers, provision of stipends and scholarships to needy students in rural areas and promotion of technical education and enhancement of educational facilities in the country.
An official of the SMSP told PPI on Wednesday that the education planners, associated with the project, had tried to emphasize on the development of post-primary level education in the province, especially in rural and undeveloped districts.
A majority of middle schools for boys have been made functional by transferring teachers from other public schools to them, however, the middle schools for girls have yet to start function owing to the unavailability of female teachers, he informed.
Most of the middle schools have been established in the interior of the province, including the rural and undeveloped areas or at taluka level in Larkana, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Sukkur, Ghotki, Khairpur, Nawab Shah, Noshehro Feroze, Hyderabad, Thatta, Badin, Mirpur Khas, Sanghar, Tharparkar, Dadu and Karachi, he informed.
Of the 179 middle schools, 19 girls and boys middle schools have been established in Karachi, 42 male and female middle schools in Hyderabad division, 34 male and female middle schools in MirpurKhas division, 31 male and female middle schools in Larkana division while the rest have been established in Sukkur division and its adjoining areas and Tharpakar, he added.
He said that the buildings of these educational institutions had been fully equipped with furniture and lab equipment and in some of these institutions, educational process had been initiated by hiring teaching staff from other public schools.
The project authorities have proposed the appointments of over 1100 trained and qualified teachers, including 179 higher secondary teachers, 537 junior secondary teachers, 179 physical training instructors, in addition to 358 other teachers.
All of the staff would be appointed from the local areas where the schools have been established to help the local population in getting employment, he informed.
Giving details of other activities under the project, he said that the first phase of training of about 3200 teachers, under the project, would kick off from October 15, during which the Master Trainers would be trained in the rural areas to impart teaching techniques to some 13105 teachers.
The programme titled “Training of Teachers and Organizers in Profession” is aimed at producing trained teaching faculties, which would in turn train local teachers in the rural areas.
He informed that some 96 educational officials have been chosen from various districts of the province to look after the academic supervision programme for training of headmasters and headmistresses.
In the first phase of the academic supervision, these district educational officials would train 136 master trainers, who in turn impart teaching training to some 2084 teachers in the next phase, he added.
During the first phase of the “Training of Teachers and Organizers in Profession,” all its phases would start simultaneously, which had been decided in an educational conference held in July, he said, adding that the ADB management had already released funds for the first phase of the teachers training programme.
In the latter phase of the programme — Training for Middle School Teachers — which has also been divided into two phases, 480 teachers’ master trainers would receive training in linguistic subjects including Urdu, Sindhi and English, Social Studies, Science, Mathematics and some other subjects, he informed.
The second phase of the programme would commence next year during which the already-trained master trainers in linguistic and social sciences would impart teaching to their original target of some 13105 teachers, he maintained.
During another programme, Development of Achievement Testing, teachers who have 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.
In addition to these projects, the Sindh government in collaboration with the ADB, has started another project to provide stipends to female students, who are still studying in 6th, 7th and 8th classes and female students of HSC Part-I and II.
According to estimates, under the MSP some 16485 female students, out of a target set of 23850, would be given stipends during the last four years while in the current year some 6000 students would benefit from the project.—PPI