AIOU conference: Power of innovative teaching stressed

Speakers promote practical teaching at the opening ceremony

ISLAMABAD: The power of education and unconventional teaching methods were the over-arching themes of the keynote addresses at the opening ceremony of the International Conference on Research and Practices on Education here on Tuesday.

The two-day conference is being organised by the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), where participants from over 20 universities presented 170 research papers.

AIOU Vice-Chancellor Shahid Siddiqui said that most developing countries still held a conservative notion of education.

Keynote speaker, Professor Lynn Fendler from the University of Michigan, spoke of critical curriculum theories for teachers’ education. She gave the example of the successful Venezuelan ‘El Sistema’ programme, which offers music training to underprivileged children to highlight the importance of practical teaching methods.

She presented the case of Maria Montessori, the Italian teacher whose methods of using the environment to teach poor children developed into an early education format. She told The Express Tribune, that ironically, Montessori’s approach had become more popular among the relatively privileged.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2016.