A school is a place where we shape the mind and character of the next generation. Schools are not meant to emphasize upon academic goals only or to provide students a clearly defined procedure for achieving those goals. They must also widen the interest of the children in the world around them, by developing their intellectual resources.
Teachers can also be called the builders of a nation’s future. A teacher’s role in nation building is to develop a student’s cognitive functioning, emotional maturity, character formation and social skills, so that in the future, they could become responsible citizens.
Since almost half of a school day, a student is with the teacher; hence they have an indelible effect on the whole personality of the student. There is a dire need for teachers to understand the importance of their duties. In addition to the need to plan the curriculum, teach, assign and grade work, a teacher should also be able to help the students in positively directing their intellectual competence, enhancing their emotional stability and making them aware of social values. These three areas merit further deliberation.
Intellectual Competence: In the context of intellectual competence, at least five important aspects collectively contribute to the building blocks of personality. First, the use of language is the back-bone of intellectual sharpness. While basic language skills evolve at home, a teacher plays an important role in its acquisition and development. A teacher’s instruction must be clear and without any ambiguity. Secondly, thinking skills help manipulate information in the form of images or concepts for decision-making and problem-solving. In Violet T. lbera’s words “More than hammering lessons into their students’ heads, teachers must provide them the tools to make them thinking individuals”. Thirdly, intelligence, which includes the ability to work on a variety of tasks, especially those related to academic success. A teacher’s approach towards education should be based on a student’s natural curiosity and tendency to act in the world in order to understand it. Knowledge is most meaningful when students construct it themselves rather than having it imposed on them. Fourthly, memory, which is a process by which the product or results are stored for future use, is an essential element as well. A teacher can make use of different mnemonic devices like imagery, grouping or coding to make materials more simple and easy to learn for the students. Fifth factor is creativity, as the ability to produce work that is both novel and appropriate. It can be enhanced by creating the right attitude and environment which is receptive to new ideas and being alert to potential problems that might be solved. Nike shoes invention is a classic case in point that led to the significant success of the commodity.
While working for enhancing the intellectual competence, a teacher might have to face problems, like lower intellectual capacity, dyslexia or attention deficit disorder; etc. They should have the skill to recognize the problem and know how to handle it.
Emotional Stability: Although several aspects are involved in emotional stability of a young person, five simple steps are most important in this regard. First, a positive self-image of the student can be projected by the teachers through their attitude towards the students; second, trust builds the primary foundation for the development of a healthy emotional attitude; third, a teacher’s support and affection will give the student adequate courage and strength to move forward in life; fourth, unwavering patience on the part of the teacher would give hope and persistence to students to go on, despite difficulties; fifth, impartiality in student handling is very important for the emotional well-being of a child. Favoritism and biased attitude can give rise to feelings of being neglected or inferiority. Finally, the way a teacher makes use of reward and punishment also has a very lasting effect on the emotional stability of the student. Rewards should be positively and liberally used to make a child repeat or inculcate any desirable behavior. To change any undesirable behavior of the student, punishment should only be used sparingly but positively by the teacher.
Social Values: A teacher must introduce social values by being a role model for character building of students. Teachers can help the students to inculcate three positive traits to function in the society. First such trait is consistency- by organizing, planning and executing the academic or curricular activities; secondly, time management, through an ability to communicate one’s point of view without being aggressive or losing control; thirdly, ethical values, that can help students in deciding what is right or wrong. These should be based on the cultural values that shape our views on child guidance.
A teacher should bring out the best in the students. They should be able to guide, inspire and motivate the youth to strive for the best and to aspire for higher learning. A good mentor should be able to share life’s experiences to produce graduates who can speak their minds and not parrot anyone, thereby contributing towards nation-building by becoming independent, confident and competent beings.
The quality of learning that children experience is of crucial importance for both their future and that of their nation. In guiding student’s learning and development, a teacher must possess the knowledge, skills and sensitivity to interact successfully with not only the child but also parents, management and others whose action can affect children throughout their lives. All of them can collaboratively work like a team and play a pivotal part in nation-building.
The writer is Vice-Principal, DACW Phase-VIII

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/category/40/

A good omen for education in Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the tribal areas: the Pakistan Army has launched a number of educational projects for the youth during the past decade in these regions of the country. It has not only established schools and colleges but also technical and industrial institutes in Balochistan, besides giving military training to the youth.
Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, realising the gravity of the situation in the insurgency-plagued areas of the country, ordered the launching of special economic and educational projects. As Balochistan has become a centre of activity of international anti-Pakistan forces recently, the Pakistan Army is obviously paying special attention to this province. General Kayani allotted 10,000 vacancies for the youth of Balochistan in 2009-2011, and announced additional 5,000 vacancies for enrolment in 2012.
According to official data, a total of 10,082 youth of Balochistan joined the Pakistan Army as officers and soldiers in the last three years. The Army also undertook special projects to enrich the people of Balochistan with quality education and to boost the provincial economy.
The development projects and progressive works, launched by the Army in Balochistan include: Military College Sui, Balochistan Public School, Sui, Quetta Institute of Medical Sciences, Gwadar Institute of Technology, Chamalang Beneficiary Education Programme, Balochistan Institute of Technical Education, Army Institute of Mineralogy, Assistance to the Ministry of Education Balochistan, and Baloch Youth Enrolment in the Pakistan Army.
Besides Balochistan, the Army has also started various educational initiatives in KPK, especially for the people of Swat and the tribal areas. The most impressive among them is a youth rehabilitation programme launched for the militancy-affected youth of the Swat valley.
After the launch of the so-called US war on terrorism in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan, the Taliban reorganised themselves and recruited hundreds of young boys and even children, aged seven or eight years old, to use them as suicide bombers against, not only the Pakistan Army, but also the general public. They brainwashed these children, telling them that the Pakistan Amy is an American army. And that if they would help kill the military men, they would go to heaven, along with all their family members.
According to a Sunday Times report, published recently, there are several jihadist reform programmes from Saudi Arabia to Sri Lanka but this one, for the Swat and tribal areas youth, is the only one to have had zero recidivism. Not one of the 145 teenage boys returned to society in the past three years has re-engaged in terrorism. "Of all the terrorism risk reduction programs I've visited this is one of the most impressive," said John Horgan, who runs the International Centre for the Study of Terrorism at Pennsylvania State University.
Located in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province's Malakand Agency, the school is called Sabaoon, which means the first light of dawn in Pashto. The school was founded in September 2009, in Rangmahalla, near the Batkhela area of Malakand Agency, to educate children whom authorities arrested during the anti-militancy Operation Rah-e-Rast in Swat or those whose parents turned them over to security forces for their links with fugitive Swat Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah (Mullah Radio).
Doctors, teachers and psychologists are part of the team taking up the challenge of deradicalising some 200 young men. UNICEF also financed the project with a grant to the Hum Pakistani Foundation. The Lahore-based group of more than 20 non-governmental organisations was formed to assist the 3.5 million Pakistanis who were displaced during the army offensive that expelled the Taliban from Swat and surrounding areas in 2009.
Fehiba Peracha, 63, a clinical psychologist, is the project director, who practised in London for 20 years before moving back to Lahore.
About the boys at the centre she said: "It was clear these children are dangerous but brainwashed. The brainwashing was simple - the promise of heaven. A 15-year-old from a family of 15, was told his life is meaningless and promised heaven and 72 virgins, if he takes it up."
The psychologist blames their acceptance of this on Pakistan's faltering education system. She believes that these children could be brought back to normal life through guidance and special attention. She says that treatment is individually tailored to the needs of each young man. The approach includes mainstream academics with the aim of a high-school degree. Boys who never attended school before get vocational training to become electricians or repairmen. "I'm trying to give them the skills to chart their own course and goals to work for," said Peracha.
When they complete the deradicalisation programme, the young men are placed in jobs or in local schools where they continue to be closely monitored.
Peracha, with the help of young psychologists and social workers, had started with about 30 children aged eight to 18 and soon began to wonder what they had taken on. "At the beginning it was warfare," said Peracha. "They fought every day. I was horrified. I'd never seen such hatred."
They had been brainwashed to the extent that they objected to even wearing a Western-style uniform of green striped shirts and khaki slacks. But she persisted. Protected by the army and helped by funding from UNICEF, she set up a computer lab, library and television room and arranged sports activities, music and art lessons.
She says that most of them were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Some had been sexually abused by their commanders. Many had to be prescribed anti-depressants.
Fehiba Peracha conducts dozens of counselling sessions with these children. In one videotaped session recorded by the army, Peracha is the gentle inquisitor, questioning the boys about how they were pulled into the Taliban's orbit.
One young man says the Taliban "had their own weapons in the mosque."
"What were all these weapons doing in a mosque? Something to think about, isn't it," Peracha notes, firmly. "Yes," comes the reply.
She mostly opens her sessions assuring the young men they will not be punished for past transgressions. They had informed on the local population for the Taliban, extorted money from shop owners and performed all manner of menial tasks at the Taliban's orders.
In another session, she takes one of the boys to task for joining in the whipping of a young girl by a group of militants. He tells her he would have been "killed" had he not participated in the beating. But Peracha presses him: "Did you see any other member of the crowd beating her?"
"No, I didn't," is the answer.
"But you hit her 20 to 30 times. Did the poor girl die?"
"No, ma'am. I was hitting her gently, but he told me off and wanted me to use more force."
It is a painstaking process before the young men reveal the full extent of their involvement and indoctrination.
Peracha says the centre has treated more than 180 young men since opening in 2009.
At Sabaoon, these boys are taught Quranic studies also so they no longer take for granted what they are told by mullahs, in a programme designed by Muhammad Farooq, vice-chancellor of Swat University, who had been threatened by the Taliban for speaking out against militancy. He was assassinated in October 2010.
The school's success is attracting attention from counterterrorism experts. Richard Barrett, former head of UN monitoring of al-Qaeda and Taliban, visited in December and was impressed at how "Sabaoon can produce such well-motivated and positive graduates from a motley group of children recruited by the Taliban".
But he warned: "Its success depends entirely on army support and clearly the army cannot be expected to undertake this sort of program on the scale required in Pakistan as a whole," the Sunday Times report added.
As Peracha admits, it is a drop in the ocean. In the first week of May 2013, she was sent to evaluate 11 boys in Quetta aged 11-16 who had been caught planting roadside bombs for $15 a time. "There was no iconic leader, no rhetoric, just lack of any other opportunity and that's a massive problem," she said.
The military authorities running the centre believe that the youth afflicted with militancy plague could be made normal citizens with the help of Fehiba Peracha and her team. These young men could be put into schools and colleges again and imparted higher education, though the process is very slow and time-consuming.

http://www.weeklycuttingedge.com/

It’s a hot issue of today that computers can replace teachers by saying that man is inventing various technologies in order to facilitate himself or to reduce his burden, then why computers can’t be a substitute for teachers.
A computer can have more information than a teacher. That means a teacher like anyone can forget things in his domain because he is a busy person and he has a lot of problems to solve and he cannot answer at all students questions, but a computer always have information for the user if the user ask correctly the question and of course if the computer is able to answer the user’s questions that means the memory of the computer should be full of information in the respective domain. In this way a computer could be more helpful than a teacher.
There are three ways to teach: tell someone, show someone or let them do it themselves. With developments in technology children can do it themselves earlier and much quicker. But by this humble piece of writing I just want to make people realize that no matter how vast knowledge a computer can have but it cannot be better than a teacher as man is no better than His creator then how a computer can.
I agree that some aspects of the educational system are already provided by the computer and yes, it is definitely true that you don’t need a person to learn everything - education is a largely personal matter. However, if we eliminate the teacher-student interaction completely, a part of the educational experience will be lost.
It’s not just the act of standing before a class that makes a teacher a teacher, there’s the whole social experience of learning - the working together, bouncing ideas off of one another, etc. People are always complaining about the loss of social contact that has come with the age of technology I fail to imagine what they’d be saying if the computer became a teacher.
Teachers are more essential than computer. Computers are just a thing or a tool to help teachers use in their teaching role more effectively and efficiency. But computers can’t fill in the role of a teacher. Computers don’t have personality, mood, or feeling like teachers does. Computers can’t discipline the students in the classroom if the students go out of control. Computers can’t comfort a human soul. Therefore, computers can’t replace the role of the teachers.
Man created computer, computer did not create man. No matter how much it tries, an invention cannot outwit its inventor. Computers can check a paper’s spelling and grammar, but they cannot teach someone style or help clarify an idea. They can give a grade, but cannot pat someone on the back.
They can display a novel chapter or poem to the screen, but cannot sit in the middle of a group of children and read it with the right voices.. They can tell a student that his or her answer is wrong, but cannot wipe away the frustrated tear that may follow.
They can record whether a student is present in class, but cannot ask why the student looks nervous or angry or depressed.
They can print a story that a student has written, but cannot recognize its potential and encourage the student to keep writing.
While the computer may offer a correct answer or explanation to students, the comprehension capability of every student varies from student to student, making it is impossible for the computer to offer an explanation catered to a student’s particular level of understanding. However, the teacher is able to undertake this task, as he or she possesses expertise in teaching. For example, when a teacher discovers that many students cannot understand professional knowledge, he or she may offer explanatory examples. The computer, however, may only analyze a question in terms of a simple right or wrong response.
The teachers are invariably responsible for carrying a dual role. Most teachers act as not only an educator, but also a kind of father or mother-figure in taking care of students in school.
The teacher is able to assist parents in solving a child’s mental problems other than imparting daily knowledge. The computer, which is purely an algorithmic electronic device, cannot hope to assist in this regard.
In summary, the computer may not play a major role in education in comparison to the benefits of a teacher bestows. However, it is critical that teachers improve their old teaching modes by using computers at some level of educational teaching.
Teachers not only impart bookish knowledge but also inculcate in the students, several moral values. This task cannot be performed by any computer.
A slave can never in-cage his master, in the same way, artificial intelligence cannot replace human intelligence which is the greatest gift of all.

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/category/40/

A study in hypocrisy

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at LUMS, Lahore.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at LUMS, Lahore.
IS ‘buying’ good quality education for my children like buying a luxury car? There are a number of providers of luxury cars: I can pick the one that comes closest to what I want. If, like a luxury car, education is a private good, the car-shopping model is fine. I do not ask the car seller to lower the price of their car. I buy or not buy, depending on what I want and what I can afford. The seller prices her pitch where she maximises her returns.

Recently, however, there has been some debate arguing for price controls on the tuition fees that private schools can charge. This came in the wake of tuition fee hikes. The state seems to have bought the argument and has not only rolled back recent increases, it has announced that future hikes will have to be justified and will be tightly controlled as well as monitored.

So, buying education is not like buying a car. But why not? Once a school year starts, it is difficult to shift a child to another school: most schools do not take children during a school year, changing schools upsets children, schools might be using different books/curricula as well. However, this serves as an argument for the Competition Commission to step in and tell schools to a) not increase fees during an academic year, b) announce fee hikes at the end of the year and well in advance of the start of the new year, and c) not surprise parents with extra levies. This is not an argument for fee caps.

Schools charge lots of other fees at the time of admission: admission fee, security and other levies and even advance fees for a few months. This bulky and fixed/sunk expenditure can act as a formidable barrier to moving children from one school to another, even if there is keen competition among a number of private schools in the vicinity. But, again, the Competition Commission could stipulate a) which fixed fees can be charged, b) which ones (security deposit) should be refunded to parents when a child leaves the school, and c) what are the limits on advance payments that schools could ask for.

Only when fees are going beyond the reach of middle-income groups do we hear calls for regulation.
The Competition Law already forbids bundling activities: for example, schools telling parents that if their children are enrolled in their school, they have to purchase school supplies of any sort from them. But it is not being implemented. Again, the Competition Commission has to ensure that existing laws are implemented.

But all of the above still do not imply that the state should be telling the schools where their fees are to be capped. We can tell car manufacturers that they have to live by certain safety, environmental and quality standards but it will be odd if we tell Mercedes that they are not allowed to charge beyond a certain level for their car. The latter should be a market decision. The entrepreneur has to decide, given market demand, what the optimal price is that she should be charging.

Many people, when they read the above, will be up in arms and more than happy to criticise me: how can he see getting an education as being the same as buying automobiles? Education is not just a private good (of benefit to the recipient and her household); it has a public good (benefit to society at large) element to it as well. Our Constitution, the basic document setting the contract between the Pakistani state and the citizen, has also recognised education as a basic right of every child between five and 16 years old. Can these considerations not be a basis for arguments for ensuring access to quality education for all children?

They definitely can be a basis, and a strong basis at that. But the issue is different. Why do the same arguments not apply on behalf of the 25 million-odd children who are currently out of school? Why do these arguments not apply on behalf of the 55pc or so of our children who are currently enrolled in public schools given that most public schools provide a relatively poorer quality of education? And why did the middle- and higher-income classes not think of these arguments when they were exiting from public schools and enrolling their children in elite private schools while leaving the children of poorer parents to fend for themselves? Would they have bought the argument for low or no fee on the basis of what the poorest parents of the country could afford? Would they even now?

The recent hue and cry over fee hikes has exposed the very hypocritical position that the middle and upper classes of the country have been taking on education: their children should have access to quality education because they could afford it and so through the 1990s and 2000s the argument of education as a private good won. And, those who could not afford to pay, suffered. And now, when fees are going beyond the reach of middle-income groups, we have the cry for regulation. Will protesting parents be willing to protest for the rights of all children?

The state has also come out looking very bad in this discussion. Within days of the protests starting the state announced rollbacks and fee freezes and even new ordinances. The children of the poor do not matter in this country. Is it too late for the state to remedy the situation and work for all children and all citizens of the country?

Education, private or public, should be regulated. But this does not make a case for fee capping. We could go towards fee capping if we accept the public good element and rights basis of education but then it should, by definition, be for all. Is it too late to argue for that?

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at LUMS, Lahore.

Source:A study in hypocrisy
Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2015

__________________
The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion !

Quality and teacher training

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at LUMS, Lahore.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at LUMS, Lahore.
SAADIA teaches mathematics to children in the fourth grade in a rural government school in Punjab. In a conversation with her, where she mentioned many challenges she faced (lack of transport facilities, frequent non-academic duties, unclear career paths, relative lack of training/mentoring support, no method for giving input/feedback in curriculum/books), it was also clear that she had significant gaps in her own knowledge and understanding of basic mathematical concepts.

Saadia could not give adequate intuitive and conceptual explanations of even ratios and division to me. If she does not understand a concept herself very well, how could she explain it to the children in her class? Saadia was aware of the deficiencies in her knowledge and understanding and she mentioned that she wanted to address them. But she also felt that she did not have a way to do so at the moment. When I mentioned to her that the internet now had plenty of high-quality material (eg Khan Academy) that she could access, free of charge, to remedy her knowledge deficiencies, she responded that she never had the time to be able to work on improving her own subject deficiencies.

About 50 odd working days get taken up by non-academic duties (polio duty, election duties, office work and so on), and there is tremendous pressure to complete the coursework every year. Whether her reading of the situation is correct or not, it was clear that she did not have the motivation to address her own issues of comprehension.

Javed teaches English in a government school. He admits his own English is pretty poor. But, more importantly, he feels that he does not have the tools with which to teach English: his training has not been able to remove the deficiencies of his own education.

There are hundreds of thousands of teachers who need to have access to good training.
The Directorate of Staff Development (DSD) in Punjab admits that a significant portion of the current set of teachers has knowledge and understanding deficiencies. DSD monitoring tools show that. But, in addition, an analysis of the Punjab Examination Commission grade 5 results also shows systematic problems with children’s understanding. And this can only be attributable to issues with teacher understanding and/or their pedagogical skills. It is not possible for the DSD to design remedial programmes that would address all issues needing correction if the directorate has to physically bring all teachers to centralised training institutes and to take each teacher away from teaching for extended periods.

The situation is not any better in low-fee private schools. Where DSD is responsible for training of all public-sector teachers, there is no equivalent of DSD in the private sphere. And individual school owners do not find training their teachers to be economically viable: they spend money on training teachers and then the teachers move to better-paying private schools. It is also not possible for individual teachers to get training on their own and use their own funds: there are not too many institutions that provide good-quality training to teachers in the private sector, available training courses are expensive and individual teachers have few incentives to pay for training on their own when there are scant opportunities for recouping their expenses through higher salaries subsequently.

The problem, then, seems, clear. There are hundreds of thousands of teachers who need to have access to good training that can address issues of understanding the subjects they teach. These teachers are there in both the public and private sector. We cannot just get rid of them as there are too many of them and, more importantly, even the new teachers we recruit are likely to have similar issues.

There is no way we can address remedial issues through physically prising public-sector teachers from their classes and moving them to training facilities: we do not have a sufficient number of facilities to do that and teachers cannot be out of classrooms for the length of time that would be needed to address issues in their understanding. In the private sector, there is no institution, like provincial DSDs, that could attempt to address the challenge.

At the same time, we do have a lot of high-quality very relevant material, available on the net and even free of cost that could address issues of teacher understanding. Khan Academy is just one example. There are a number of NGOs, technology companies and even parts of government (PITB in Punjab) that have produced and uploaded good material that could help teachers as well as students improve their understanding in important areas. In some cases, organisations have even gone to the extent of matching the material with individual grade requirements and the curriculum for each grade.

The issue that is left is: what is the vehicle and mechanism through which we can deliver the material to those who need it (teachers and students)? And how do we motivate the teachers and students to benefit from the material. We need to experiment to see if providing this material through DVDs — if internet access is an issue — can happen. Do we need to ensure all schools have at least one computer, with an internet connection, available to teachers? Do we distribute tablets to all teachers? And students? Do we produce material that could be downloaded on smart mobile phones? Beyond access, what would the appropriate motivational means be?

Without addressing teacher training issues on a large scale and a sustainable basis, it is hard to see how we can address access and quality issues in education. We have the basic tools that are needed. We need to experiment with delivery mechanisms and the structuring of motivational issues to ensure we are able to find the right ways of addressing the challenge.

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at LUMS, Lahore.

Source:Quality and teacher training
Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2015

__________________
The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion !