Islamabad:The Higher Education Commission (HEC), Learning Innovation (LI) Division has conducted a two-day “National Forum on Teacher Education” in collaboration with National Accreditation Council for Teacher Education (NACTE).
Dr. Riaz-ul-Haq Tariq, Chairperson, NACTE graced the occasion as chief guest. As many as 35 participants including Deans, Directors and Chairpersons of public and private sector teacher education departments attended the forum apart from HEC and provincial school education authorities.
The purpose of this forum was to address the prevailing issues of teacher education focusing on how to prepare quality teachers, conduct ideal weightage of content and improve professional grooming.
The forum brought under consideration two prevailing issues including varying employment policies and practices across provinces and the models and pathways of teacher preparation. It observed that the question of teacher preparation in Pakistan is jeopardised at the grass root level by allowing any individual to become a teacher with the lowest level and quality of academic preparation and zero professional preparation.
“Even the policy book regarding appointment in public schools is set aside to appoint untrained teachers claiming some short-term post-induction training as sufficient to become a teacher,” speakers at the forum underlined. They maintained that the said two issues lead to the third most important issue i.e. quality assurance of teacher education programmes.
They expressed serious concern about the induction of untrained and non-professional teachers and stopping pre-service in Government Colleges for Elementary Teacher (GCETs) and Regional Institutes of Teacher Education (RITEs) by the provincial education departments.
The forum stressed the need for consensus among provincial educational authorities and experts with regard to establishment of pre-service teacher education and training mechanism.
The closing ceremony was chaired by Dr. Mehmood-ul-Hassan Butt, Consultant, HEC. Dr. Riaz-ul-Haq Tariq, Chairperson NACTE, Dr. Irshad Farrukh, Sectary, NACTE and Mr. Fida Hussain, Director General, LI, HEC were also present on the occasion.