Article by Sajid Rizvi Teachers as Nation Builders

NSajid Rizvi wrote an important article teachers as nation builders in which he praise the Punjab government and tell the technique ‘Teaching in Clusters by Subject Specialists (TICSS). He appeal to the Punjab government to include government schools in this scheme. Now you can read the article.

Provision of quality education, especially to the school going students, has emerged as the big issue in recent years when education sector grows to be a global industry; and developed countries are earning billions of dollars by investing in it and offering opportunities of market-oriented quality education to prospective international students. However, on the other side, Pakistan is still napping to do anything in this regard.

As a result, quality education is still a distant dream in government schools due to lack of modern training opportunities for the not so literate school teachers who cannot even speak in English language. Due to this, our educational system is still crawling in the 21st century while India has already taken off by setting up international level institutions like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) to attract the international students.

In my opinion, teachers’ training is need of the hour so that our schools could be developed as platform of nation building and developers of future leaders. While government sector is still complacent in this regard, I am glad to know that Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) has entered into an agreement with 92 low-cost private schools of 17 districts in Punjab to provide the services of master degree holder Subject Specialists for teaching the subjects of Science and English to 5,000 students of these private schools who cannot afford hiring quality teachers due to financial constraints. In my opinion, it is a good step on part of Punjab Education Foundation to arrange quality teaching for economically deprived students.

Thus, PEF has become a ray of hope for these institutions and their students who cannot afford tuitions. Subject Specialists hired by the PEF not only give free education to the poor students but also coach other teachers. This initiative, known as ‘Teaching in Clusters by Subject Specialists (TICSS),’ is helping the los-cost schools to improve their educational level. I appeal to the Punjab government to include government schools in this scheme so that public sector schools could also be perked up.

—Lahore