 The Southern Asia Office of Global Ministries, in cooperation with One Great Hour of Sharing, is supporting Church World Service’s Rural Teacher Training Program in Pakistan. There are few teacher training institutes in Pakistan and the focus at these institutes is on the transmission of knowledge. Teachers-in-training get little opportunity to reflect in a supportive and systematic environment on their educational beliefs, classroom practices, objectives of education and relationships with peers, students and community. The education that is available to children in Pakistan is usually rote and monotonous. Teaching staff are poorly trained and exempt from all accountability, especially in rural areas.
 Church World Service’s Pakistan Office is implementing a Rural Teacher Training Program to make the primary school experience more effective for children. CWS is providing intensive and practical training to teachers working in rural areas through on site workshops and workshops at CWS Headquarters. In 2004, workshops were held on General Teaching Skills, Teaching & Learning through A/V Aids, Classroom Management, Cooperative Learning Skills, and Teacher – Student Motivation. One hundred and twenty-four teachers participated in the trainings. CWS also held an Art Work Exhibition in which 150 students participated in debates, role plays, poems, puppet shows, folk dances and a quiz competition. The teachers used the Art Exhibition as an opportunity to self-evaluate on how well they had incorporated what they were learning.
The Rural Teacher Training Program is also working to develop teachers’ resource materials and has developed a teachers training manual on Teaching Methodologies which will give the teachers a thorough understanding of Child Psychology, Different Ways of Communication, Classroom Management & Organization, Effective Use of Black Board, Learning Disabilities, Multiple Intelligence, How to Prepare and Use Audio/visual Aids and several other topics. |
