Swat Science Festival concludes after giving hope to aspiring scientists

MINGORA: The Swat Science Festival concluded Wednesday with a ray of hope for the aspiring junior scientists.

The two-day festival was organised by Udhyaana, the Deputy Commissioner’s office, the District government, Swat Education Department and Pakistan Alliance for Maths and Science.

The event, arranged at the Khadee Hall in Saidu Sharif, witnessed a massive attendance of 13,500 students from more than 100 government schools and science enthusiasts.

The organisers said being the largest science festival held for students in Swat the event was a shining example for district governments across Pakistan to replicate the model.

They said such events were especially important in rural areas to familiarise school administrations, teachers and students with unique ways to teach and understand basic science concepts in an interesting and engaging manner.

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Faisalabad, Khalid Farook also attended the festival and met with his counterparts in Swat to discuss inter-provincial coordination and best practices for upcoming Faisalabad Science Festival scheduled to be held in May.

The students from all over Swat district participated in the festival. They had set up over 150 stalls to showcase their creative exhibits on different themes and aspects of science.

Many students had designed models based on solutions required to fix Swat’s urgent problems such as road infrastructure, electricity supply and water management.

This was a clear indication of the interest the children of Swat have to use everyday science to take care of issues in the development of their cities and towns.

At the closing ceremony, former Member National Assembly Bushra Gohar stressed the need for local administrators to invest more in STEM education, especially for girls.

She called for encouraging teachers and providers to help children explore various dimensions of science so that the solutions and models they presented at the forum could be implemented practically.

Dr Jawad Iqbal of Udhyaana requested the government to provide teachers with the latest digital tools and training to help them improve science instruction in classes, and work on updating the content in school syllabi so that Swat’s children are able to compete at the international education forums.

Swat’s Deputy Commissioner Shahid Mehmood announced to establish science labs in all government schools in Swat. He promised to arrange science festivals of this scale every year.

Former MNAs Bushra Gohar and Jameela Gillani and former provincial minister Wajid Ali Khan distributed prizes to school headmasters and students.

The organisers also thanked the six science organisations — Pakistan Science Club, AZCorp, Numerica, Sabaq, Learn-o-Bots and Stemmers for various hand-on science and maths activities and storytelling sessions throughout the two days of the festival.