Trends which are rapidly influencing the neighboring countries and the West are strongly taking root in Pakistan. With political changes and economic advancement, ICT and its integration in education will meteorically boost the skills of Pakistani students and teachers. Uzma Younis, a teacher by profession, was not familiar with ICT, but she is now confident enough to integrate technology in the subject she teaches. The Intel® Teach Program has reached out to remote areas of Pakistan, including the district of Badin, where Uzma’s school, Dewan Farooq Memorial School, is working in close collaboration with Intel to prepare its students for the 21st century. Intel® Education has been working for the promotion of technology in education in Pakistan since 2001, to address the educational challenges of the 21st century. The Intel Teach Program has ensured that academic planning should optimize the use of technology in the teaching-learning process.
Challenges:
Despite the presence of PC labs, students are not allowed access PCs for fear of damage or loss of the PC.
Schools do not have trained teachers who possess ICT skills, and most subject teachers do not know how to use PCs.
Teachers are in need of effective strategies to help students acquire 21st century knowledge and skills.
Approach:
Provide teachers with professional development training, through the Intel® Teach Program, to integrate technology in their lesson plans and enable students to acquire the latest knowledge and skills.
Evaluate program implementation and support teachers through various questionnaires and classroom observations for effectiveness of the program.
Benefits:
Teachers and students are more eager to participate in workshops and training programs, whereas earlier the perception was that it was a waste of time. Also, students are allowed to use the PC lab frequently during school hours.
ICT is now not only taught as a separate subject, but is integrated with academics and curriculum of all subjects. Students’ level of confidence to present ideas, and their ability and skills to do so has increased sharply.
Intel® Teach Program: A case study
Technology is the catalyst for teaching and learning and ICT has distinct advantages that transcend the classroom environment. The vision laid down by Pakistan’s education policy is to have education for all its citizens and many programs have been launched by the provincial as well as Federal Government to achieve these goals. Yet, our country is behind others that have successfully developed “Knowledge Societies”.
The quality of any system is as good as its human resources. To improve education in Pakistan, the needs and skill set of our teachers, head teachers and administrators must be addressed holistically. Technology-based teaching and learning can enhance teaching quality by supporting and reinforcing the innovative usage of technology integrated with academics. The effective use of technology will help educators to access a wide array of materials. Administrators will also benefit from ICT by using technology to access management resources and tools that can strengthen their decision making process.
‘I, Hamza, am a student of class 7 and the son of a local laborer Gill, studying in Dewan Farooq Memorial School in Khoski which is almost 22km from Badin, Sind, Pakistan. I believe I’m good at my studies and my results and teachers also say so. Like other students of my age I am adventurous and inquisitive and want to try out new things. The school where I am studying is located in a slum area, where resources and facilities are minimal. The school is set up within the premises of a sugar mill, set up by Dewan Farooq, and my fellow schoolmates and classmates attending the school are mostly the children of mill employees.
Some of Hamza’s teachers are mothers of his classmates. Approximately all the children attending the school are from the lower middle socio-economic class and cannot afford their school fees, let alone any extravagances. Therefore, the administration of the school has made education free along with free uniform and books for the children.
A teacher’s approach towards teaching is traditional in Pakistan and is a means to transfer book knowledge only. However, at Hamza’s school, teachers who have been with the school for some years have been trained through the Intel® Teach Program. Not only have they been trained, there are frequent refreshers, and so the Intel Teach Program is valued as an on-going professional development opportunity.
The first courses at the school, which had ICT integrated into the lesson plans, were in class 9 and 10. With the help of Intel Teach Program, Dewan Farooq has held a series of training courses conducted for teachers to benefit students to equip them with skills that the students of this school needs to survive.
However, whenever there is a new teacher at the school, she takes some time to learn about ICT and technology. Hamza says ‘I have felt the difference between the trained teachers and the newly appointed ones, as the new teachers take some time to learn the technology and then use it to make our classrooms more fun places to learn’. There is great concern over the turnover rate of teachers at the school. However, the management now ensures that as soon as a teacher joins the schools, she or he ‘receives training on the Intel Teach Program to bring her/him up to speed with advanced teaching methodology’ says Ghazala Anwar, the principal. ‘Teachers need more and more training on how to use technology, as increased access to technology and the Internet can enhance their students’ exploring abilities, decision making and problem solving skills. Time spent at the computer also motivates students to think creatively and to produce more exciting and informative assignments.
‘Being a student I am expected to present class assignments in front of my classmates in each school term, and for various subjects including Mathematics, English and Arts. This helps me learn quicker and in a more enjoyable manner’, says Hamza.
‘I am not new to technology, as at my school I have been exposed to computers, however, this was not the case before. I only played games whenever I had access to PCs. Now I use computers in other aspects of my life: For e.g. I use them to complete assignments, answer questions that my family raises at home, stay abreast with the rest of the world by reading the news online - all of these things that I did not know how to do before. I am also helping my brother, sister and friends in my locality, by teaching them what I read or learnt from the Internet.
Computers and the Internet have taught me something new everyday. Now I have learnt ‘new tricks’. I select topics for my projects with references, and share knowledge with others via emails and blogs. Now I feel more confident to share my work and to exchange it with my friends and I really value and enjoy the interaction with my classmates, teachers and the community.’
Hamza’s classmates have also expressed similar positive changes, saying that they do not feel any less accomplished at school or in their community as compared to students living in urban areas. This excitement is infectious, considering these are students whose parents do not know how to read a book, let alone know what a computer is!
Uzma Younis, a teacher from Dewan Farooq Memorial School is a subject teacher and teaches class 5 students subjects like Social Studies, Mathematics & Arts. Uzma says she feels she is a better teacher, since she participated in the Intel Teach Program as she is now able to relate the content of her teaching with real life. Other teachers have also noticed an improvement in their own skills. ‘We can manage our time better, as lots of activities that we used to do manually, have become much quicker when we do them through the computer’ says Aisha, a teacher of primary classes. Teachers are also taking more interest in lesson planning and assessing students more effectively as they have realized that proper planning and implementation helps students learn better. ‘We, as in the teachers, also work as a team, sharing information and ideas with other subject teachers. The classroom is now a more fun place and students who had to be pushed to attend class or complete assignments, are now eager to come to class and work with their team-mates.’ Teachers have developed creative ways to engage students. They conduct a live quiz program (Kon bane ga Karoor pati) or (Who Wants to be a Millionaire) amongst a number of students through the network of PCs. Students are expected to answer simultaneously and pass through a series of questions (about various topics like General Knowledge, Maths, etc.), and they find the adrenaline rush of learning and competing quite enjoyable. The school is also looking into implementing an online testing solution in the coming year.
Students’ work and creativity has also been shared with a wider audience. Students participate in various competitions, for example, recently the school won the first position in a competition held at Institute of Education Development of Aga Khan University Pakistan. The project, called “Treasure from Trash” revolved around recycling various materials from the community to save on household expenses and costs. The entire community was involved through inclusion of parents and after six weeks, the teachers and students found that the broader community benefited, and was so interested in the project that they wanted to extend it beyond the 6 week life of the project!
Mrs. Ghazala Anwar says ‘We want to promote our school as a place where student’s dreams are transformed to reality’ and she firmly believes that Intel Education has been instrumental in fostering this dream. At times she hears from a teacher who has been teaching for twenty-five odd years that there is no need for them to change now as the method has been working for them for so many years. However, she explains to the teacher that it is the students who have changed and teachers need to learn to reach out to the students in new and exciting ways. And what better way than the use of technology which releases so much energy that it makes learning not only exciting but much more worthwhile.
Mrs. Anwar would like to see The Dewan Farooq Memorial High school as a leading school in the district, when it comes to the effective use of technology in education. For now, it is the only school making an effort towards this, but she hopes to take the entire district of Badin towards this new vision of engaged learning.
Intel® Teach Program in Pakistan
The Intel® Teach Program was launched in Pakistan with a pilot in 2001. In 2002, the Intel® Education Initiative inked an MOU with the Federal Ministry of Education, to support the goals of the Ministry towards professional development of teachers and progress of our nation through integration of technology. To date 140,000 in-service and pre-service teachers have been trained, and there has been no looking back for the team. Whilst a National ICT strategy has been launched in Pakistan in April 2007, there are still questions of how to address the need to bring teachers, administrators and students up to speed with technology and its usage. There is now a sense of urgency on the part of policy makers, implementers and educators. Intel Teach Program is working with these policy makers and implementers to help accelerate the process of technology integration in the classroom, to address the needs of students and teachers.
The Intel® Education Initiative
The Intel® Education Initiative is Intel’s sustained commitment to prepare all students, anywhere, with the skills required to thrive in the knowledge economy by improving teaching and learning through the effective use of technology, and advancing math, science and engineering education and research. Through a sustained public-private partnership with educators and governments in more than 50 countries, Intel works with international organizations and governments at an international, national, and local level and invests approximately USD 100 million per year in education programs adapted to address the needs of each country to advocate for 21st century educational excellence through policy work and awareness efforts.
For more information, visit: www.intel.com/education/pk
For more information on the Intel Teach Program, visit: www.intel.com/education/teach
Copyright© 2007 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel and the Intel Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
*Others names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
