Islamabad: The USAID, through its Pre-Service Teacher Education Programme (Pre-STEP), organized a two-day consultative dialogue at Karachi as part of the efforts to improve the quality of basic education in Pakistan.
The workshop entitled ‘A Consultative Interchange on Teacher Education’, initiated a focused dialogue on bringing about reforms in pre-service teacher education in Pakistan. Provincial education secretaries, senior officials of HEC, vice chancellors and principals of Pre-STEP partner universities and colleges attended the consultative workshop.
The various sessions of the two-day workshop involved bringing all stakeholders up to date on Pre-STEP’s activities and to deliberate on aligning shared priorities for pre-service teacher education in Pakistan. Building upon these discussions, the provincial groups proposed key policy actions required to achieve provincial government’s priorities.
Dr. Sohail Naqvi, Executive Director, Higher Education Commission (HEC) was the chief guest on the occasion. Addressing the participants he said, “I consider this to be the most important development project being undertaken in Pakistan by any development agency.”
Mr. Paul Sabatine, Deputy Mission Director of USAID said, “Pre-STEP will continue to work closely with HEC and all provinces in the development of a teaching force in Pakistan so that the teachers of this country have more skills and qualifications and more opportunities for continuous professional development.”
The primary objective of Pre-STEP is to help the Government of Pakistan develop, introduce and implement innovative curricula for a new four-year Bachelors’ Degree in Education and two-year Associate Degree in Education. To achieve this goal, Pre-STEP is working closely with the provincial governments to create systems, policies and standards that will ensure effective execution of the degree programmes.
For more information, contact:
Aayesha Ikram
Director (Media)
Higher Education Commission
Sector H-9, Islamabad
Tel: 90402404, 90402412
Email: aikram@hec.gov.pk
Website: www.hec.gov.pk