ISLAMABAD: Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan has launched a capacity building training programme for faculty of nine divisions of the Punjab in collaboration with Higher Education Department, Punjab under the Higher Education Development in Pakistan (HEDP) project.

A two-day training was organized by the HEDP project team of HEC at the University of Education, Lahore for faculty of 60 affiliated colleges of Lahore district. The first batch comprising 109 participants, including over 60 percent women, was trained in the capacity-building workshop. The training comprised of six modules: a) Transition to Semester System; b) Academic Advisement and Career Progression; c) Use of Technology in Education; d) Learning Assessment and Feedback; e) Curriculum and Course Development; and f) Teaching Methodology: Andragogy and Pedagogy.

The activity is led by Programme Specialist, HEDP, Mr. Asad Khan and the Post-Secondary Education Reform Unit (PERU) team, a component of the project responsible for execution and rollout of Undergraduate Education Policy (UEP), in close coordination with the Higher Education Departments (HEDs). The HEDP project is focused on supporting the tertiary education system composed of affiliated colleges in Pakistan and several initiatives of the project including IT support, governance, capacity building and financial autonomy are aimed to support these institutions.

The training is an outcome of advocacy meetings held earlier with HED Punjab in which they have nominated 1600 faculty members from 800 affiliated colleges, whose capacity will be enhanced in a phased approach. The training was followed by an online post-test and feedback survey. The pre and post-tests indicate that substantial value was added to the participants knowledge about UEP during the training.

Deputy Secretary, HED Punjab, Mr. Nadeem Asghar attended the opening as well as closing (certificate distribution) ceremonies. He stressed effective coordination between federal and provincial bodies and the importance of such training for faculty development, especially in the affiliated colleges.