Thank you for your kind words. We informed LUMS of our operations since we were using LUMS’ name and resources for fund-raising, meetings, etc. But other than that, SRP is a completely student-led, student-managed effort.

That is some excellent work you describe.

Just out of curiosity, did you have any institutional support, for example, from LUMS, on this project or is this a completely student-led, student-managed effort with no input from any institution (except the NGOs that you work with, of course)?

CARE Foundation runs an “ACCESS to English Language Program” which provides free English classes to students of government schools. We had a team of 50 volunteers from all elitist private schools and colleges in Lahore who for 2 months visited these ACCESS centers every Friday/Saturday at places in Lahore like Fatehgarh, Harbanspura, Township, Rehmanpura, etc. They taught public speaking and debating by assigning 1 volunteer to 4-5 students. At the end of the 2 months, we held a Public Speaking Competition between students from the 15 ACCESS centers at Alhamra that was judged by mainstream debates coaches like Taimoor Banday and Omair Rana. Our next target is to get a team from these centers to participate in mainstream Model UN Conferences in Pakistan like LUMUN.

SAVE (Society for the Advancement of Education) is an NGO that operates Free Mashal Primary School at a village in Lahore. They’re teaching an English-medium curriculum. Since it’s a donation-based school, they’re not able to afford qualified (and expensive) teachers. As a result, the quality of teaching is poor. Some teachers even have to translate the text in Urdu for themselves before teaching the kids. For 2 months, our 20 volunteers went 6 days a week, 10am – 1pm, and worked with the teachers to help them improve the level of teaching. We also helped them prepare tests and exams.

The volunteers all hailed from elitist private schools/colleges like Aitchison, LGS, LUMS, LSE and Alma. Convincing them to make the first visit was hard but once they had interacted with the kids, it was smooth sailing thereon.

We’re now working on how to expand the program by affiliating with more NGO programs and coming up with small projects that student volunteers can take up as and when they’re free during their academic year. You can check out the Facebook Group for details. Feedback here (or on the group) would be highly appreciated.

1. Do you believe on central planning in education, where some high intellectual elite sitting in the centre decides what needs to be taught at lower levels, with lower rungs have to implement this plan of studies.
2. Do you think that market has any role in managing education at college level, only government bureaucrats decide how much budgetary allocation to be made for each college.
3. In your opinion your suggested method has the most probability to induce motivation in teaching staff without any linkage with market for sustaining their future growth.
4. What are the opportunities of public private partnership for college education, where human motivation for fame & social recognition could be used for attracting private monies for creating private ownership through establishing trusts

While I agree with you that a few hours of volunteering at random probably will not have a significant impact, I think these are worthwhile efforts nonetheless. At the very least, they get young people involved in volunteering work and that in its own right is no small feat. An intersting example of this is Project Topi (http://www.giki.edu.pk/Students/Societies/Project%20Topi/index.html) which took students at GIK Institute into the villages near their campus. Yaser can chime in on this, but my sense is that the volunteers probably learned just as much as the kids they were volunteering to teach, if not more!

I like your mentoring idea. One example of this is the Big Brothers Big Sisters initiative in the US (http://www.bbbs.org).

However, teaching a few hours a month would bring negligible improvement I think. A regular teacher has a far greater impact than randomly selected people at different times.

I know of someone whose teacher made her whole class vow that every one of them *will* commit to educating one person in their life. I think something like this would be a far more effective approach. Some sort of program where selected or volunteer students can actually “adopt” a younger brother/sister as a student in their field, and remain committed to them for at least a certain field of education for a certain period of time – perhaps a year or two at least.

“Build on various current HEC initiatives such as foreign faculty hiring and scholarship schemes for university teachers. There are simply not enough qualified persons within Pakistan to adequately staff university departments.

….The fact that these schemes have been mismanaged by the HEC…..

should not prejudice one against their potential usefulness if proper procedures and rules are adhered. Those selected for overseas scholarships should be required to clear an international subject test.”

Unquote

I have heard / read Dr. Hoodbhoy saying things to this same effect on a number of occasions. I was hoping that he would explain that here but was disappointed to note that he did not. Maybe there is more in the second part of this interview.

I am of the opinion that although the initiatives taken by HEC may not be IDEALLY / FLAWLESSLY managed, but I believe that they have been fairly well managed. The foreign faculty hiring and scholarship programs are fairly transparent and along with other initiatives, they have had a discernibly positive impact on the overall education landscape of the country.

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What you can expect from a person to teach who is getting 4630 Rs per month (an example from Govt. School in Sukkur).

We have different streams of education, students do get good education in private schools (e.g., A and O levels), and the same teachers are above-average in their private education centers.

We have three lines of education, Public schools, Madrasah and Private schools. Gradautes from Publich schools are the ones Dr. PH is talking about, gradaute from Madrasah (at least most of them) are as confused as they were in their first day, and gradautes from Private school flee the country.

We have to make our public schools more attractive for the masses, for good students and for hard working teachers, we have to pay them competitive salaries. I wouldn’t teach for 5000 Rs/Month when my son’s school tuition is 10,000/month :-(

I also have a suggestion, we can have something like “TeachForPakistan” where the stundets/teachers from elite class or good schools can volunteer sometime and goto public school and teach for few hour every month. We have to stop criticising and step forward and play some role.

GOD bless Pakistan

Bee