queried.
Farida Zuberi pointed out that the “eco-systems” in government and private schools were far apart. “Training is highly relevant as teachers apply it to their classrooms, which is highly advantageous.”
She further said that there was a disconnect between educational policies and classroom experiences.
Another panelist said it was very nice for teachers to be trained “but when a teacher had to go back to a class with 42 children and the principal or administrator not having undergone that training, things were sure to go awry”.
All the panelists were of the view that teachers’ voices must be heard and teachers should be articulate in their thoughts.
This was followed by methods of teaching English by Shaheena Alvi.
Another interesting session was the one titled, “Understanding Faiz in the classroom”, conducted by the poet’s grandson, Adeel Hashmi. Hashmi said his grandfather, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, was maltreated good and proper by successive regimes and was blacked out of all syllabi and curricula.
“I feel that it was because he sympathised with the poor, the downtrodden, the workers who through the sweat of their brow keep a country going, the victims of official injustices, and others. That didn’t fit in with the agenda of the ruling cliques,” he said. “The collective temperament of our society is very mercurial,” he said and quoted the example of motorists who came to blows even if their car bumpers just gently touched each other without even causing minimal damage. “Never expect anything sensible from the corporate sector.”
Most of the time, however, he spoke on the importance of using the national language, Urdu, rather than English. He decried the trend whereby English speakers are looked upon as stylish or trendy while the “Urdu medium ones” are referred to with scorn. Many companies had set up their stalls to display items of children’s learning.
One of the highly encouraging exhibitions was the stall belonging to The Communicators, which had a radio run on two motorcycle batteries, with perfect reception, no ionospheric disturbances, broadcasting children’s programmes. This was a resounding testimony to the ingenuity of our people.
The two young ladies, Fatima Azher and Sana Afzal, manning the stall, told The News that they were beaming programmes to 350 schools in Vehari, Islamabad and Abbottabad.
Another stall by the Hyderabad-based Management Development Foundation had a wide assortment of primers in a lot of subjects, including English and Mathematics, adopting a revolutionary approach which makes learning highly enamouring for children. Nasreen Memon, the incharge of the stall, explained the revolutionary aspects of the matter in the primers.