960404

IED's moot

concludes

KARACHI: On the third and last day of the International Conference on Teacher Education, at the Institute for Educational Development (IED), which brought together approximately 150 teacher educators from all the 4 provinces of Pakistan as well as from overseas, there was a general consensus that the challenge of the day was to develop professionalism among both teachers and teacher educators as well as to formulate the mode of such professional development.

Co-operative learning and community participation were focused upon as key to sustainable educational reform and the intervention strategies of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were cited as having had a great impact on the quality of education in these countries. Community participation in the province of Balochistan, in the education process, leading to improvement in the quality of education, was also referred to as an excellent example of a major breakthrough leading to positive change and educational reform.

There were strong recommendations that the colleges and institutes of education, in the region, should work together more closely to learn from their mutual experiences. It was pointed out that the teacher is the architect of a strong nation and her/his training and development should be a national priority.

Dr. M. Kazim Bacchus, Director of IED, reviewed the process of change and critical thinking that had occurred within the course participants. He said that IED's first venture in this field was to train cadres of professional development teachers, who eventually would be exemplary class room practitioners, effective in-service teacher educators and educational change agents in schools.

Professor Michael Fullan, Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Toronto, Canada, stressed the need for setting directions and goals that are forged out of action and experience. In any good programme there is a strong need to re-balance both vision and strategic planning with group related directions that are set and shared by all involved, he added.