HEC conducts workshop for college faculty of ICT region

Islamabad : HEC’s Higher Education Development in Pakistan (HEDP) project team conducted a three-day capacity building workshop for teachers at affiliated colleges of the ICT region.

The workshop was conducted by the Post-secondary Education Reform Unit (PERU) in coordination with the National Academy of Higher Education (NAHE).

The Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training and the Federal Directorate of Education had requested the training for 70 nominated teachers from associate and graduate colleges of Islamabad. The Undergraduate Education Policy (UEP) 2020 was approved by the HEC and being implemented from Fall 2023.

The success of a policy depends on the preparedness of teachers who constitute the foundation of an education system. For successful implementation of UEP, it is important that the faculty of higher education institutes understand it well and are prepared to implement it in letter and spirit. The affiliated colleges are undergoing a transition from an annual system to semester system under the education policy 2020. The introduction of associate degree programmes and bachelor’s degree programmes requires significant procedural and regulation changes in student admission, enrolment, registration, advisement system, internship, capstone project, assessment methods, attendance system, course design and conduct, learning management system, and using technology in teaching & assessment. For the first time, a special module on environment and sustainability was also added to create awareness among teachers regarding the SDGs. The training methods also addressed the expectations and level of target teachers with suitable activities and involvement rather than mere lecturing.

The workshop was conducted by Master Trainers specialized in various areas of training. It commenced with an inaugural address by Dr. Mehmood ul Hassan Butt, Project Coordinator, HEDP. He briefed the audience with his vision of quality higher education for all including affiliated colleges that comparatively have been a weaker link in higher education in Pakistan.

Dr. Syed Afaq Husain, Consultant Capacity Building, briefed the audience about the workshop and hoped that the benefits of this training would reach the students.

The training comprised the following modules: Transition to Semester System by Dr. Zeeshan Khattak, Teaching Methodologies & Academic Advisement by Dr. Zahir J. Paracha, Student Assessment and Feedback by Dr. Kashif S. Malik, Curriculum, Course Design & Planning by Dr. Saira Nudrat, Technology in Teaching & Learning by Dr. Shehryar Naveed, and Environment & Sustainability by Engr. Naeem Subhani, Safe T Consult. 64 teachers from 33 colleges across Islamabad- both urban and rural, attended the training out of which 45 were females.

A pre-test was conducted at the beginning of the training while a post-training test was conducted at the end to gauge the learning achieved by the trainees. The participants provided positive feedback on the training and revised UEP.