Education is a solution to all problems, says chief minister

The solution to all problems is only education. However, to maintain high standards of education, it is imperative to have highly qualified and trained teachers, who are unfortunately not available in Sindh where the number of policemen exceeds the number of teachers and where only nine per cent of teachers could teach the science subjects at the 40,000 state-run schools.

Meanwhile, the Sindh government is trying to engage the private sector to ensure that high quality education was accessible to all.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and other speakers expressed these views on Wednesday at a ceremony held at the National Museum of Pakistan to mark the beginning of a public-private partnership between the provincial government and Durbeen, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), which would be running the Government Elementary College of Education, Hussainabad from now onwards.

Durbeen also announced its partnership with the University of Helsinki, Finland to introduce best global practices for the teachers’ education at the Hussainabad college.

Speaking at the ceremony, the CM said the Sindh government had facilitated the affiliation of the college for teachers’ education with an international university in order to produce trained teachers, which would transform the quality of teaching at the government schools.

The provincial government feels there is a lack of training for teachers, the CM said, adding that the government wanted to resolve the issue on a priority basis. “We recruit police on merit but ignore competency of teachers during their appointments”.

The CM was of the view that even if 10 per cent of the total 40,000 government schools in Sindh started providing high quality education, the problem of illiteracy would be eventually resolved.

We have to put all the schools on the right track, Murad said, announcing that the government would hire more teachers to revive the public schools in the province. Sindh Education Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah also spoke at the event. He affirmed the fact that a large number of people had stopped believing in the government schools. He, however, added that not all the government schools were ineffective. The government schools need to be owned, Sardar said.

Citing the example of Zindagi Trust schools, he said that their buildings were the same that were constructed by the government, and their teaching and non-teaching staff was the same that was recruited by the government but those schools were neat and clean and providing best education because they were being owned.

The education minister maintained that the private education sector also lacked quality teachers and therefore, the need for an institute for teachers’ training was dire. Durbeen Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Salma A Alam said the NGO had partnered with the provincial government to revamp a government college for teachers’ education to produce top-quality professional teachers. The long-term goal of the partnership was to ensure that the government schools across Sindh were staffed with competent teachers so that students from all backgrounds had access to equal opportunities to learn and succeed, she added.

According to Alam, the partnership between Durbeen and the Sindh government was unique as many of its aspects were first of their kind in the country. Through the initiative, a leading Finnish varsity would have its first educational project in Pakistan, she said, adding that never before any government in Pakistan had undertaken such a partnership for teachers’ education as well.

The Durbeen CEO maintained that traditionally, whenever educational reforms were planned in the country, their predominant focus would be on increasing access to education by building more schools and improving governance. However, over the past decade, she said, there had been a growing realisation that simply enrolling a student at a school was not enough as without good teachers, nothing would come of it.

Durbeen will improve and reform the process of teachers’ qualification by refurbishing the existing facilities at the college, Alam announced, adding that the management, education system and admissions programme at the facility will also be revised to enrich the curriculum and develop the capacity of the college faculty, she said.

Representing the University of Helsinki, Project Director Minna Saade said education systems performed best when their teachers were respected, selected on merit and supported in their work.

She said the collaboration between Durbeen and the Finnish varsity would be stronger in the coming years. The varsity’s education faculty is ready to take up the project and share the required experience with Pakistan to prepare quality teachers, she added.

Encouraging the private-public partnership, Zindagi Trust President Shehzad Roy said unless the government schools were improved, we should not hope for uplifting education in the country. Roy was of the view that the government schools could also produce most talented students if we fixed the basic problems of such schools. School Education Secretary Qazi Shahid Parvez and Tabba Foundation Chairman Ali Tabba also attended the ceremony.

The agreement

The provincial government has signed an agreement with Durbeen, authorising it to take over the management of the Government Elementary College of Education, Hussainabad for a period of 10 years.

Durbeen aims at improving the quality of education in the government schools across Sindh by staffing them with professional teacher graduates of the revamped government college of teachers’ education. For this project, Zindagi Trust, a non-profit organisation, will function as the parent organisation of Durbeen. The trust has been active in the education sector as previously it has transformed two government schools in Karachi into model schools.

Meanwhile, Durbeen has signed an agreement with the University of Helsinki, Finland to enrich the college’s teacher education curriculum and build the capacity of the faculty. The education system in Finland is considered one of the best around the world and ranks highly in multiple international assessments.