Watchful eye: K-P to hire more off icers to monitor teaching quality

Education dept implements SQMI initiative, hopes it will improve teaching quality

PESHAWAR: To improve the quality of education being imparted in schools of the province, the education department has launched a School Quality Management Initiative (SQMI), a series of training to improve field-level monitoring and assistance.

The government is also now looking to increase the number of district education officers.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Elementary and Secondary Education Department (K-P ESED) believes the SQMI can play a vital role in improving the quality of school inspections and standardise teaching and learning process in all schools of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

The SQMI, officials said, will provide the basis for ranking schools. Technically empowered Assistant District Education Officers (ASDEOs) can provide immediate feedback to teachers and head teachers to improve the quality of teaching and learning and school management.

After completing their training at Provincial Institute for Teachers Education (PITE), ASDEOs started their SQMI visits from February 2018, visiting as many as 8,000 schools across the province — or around a quarter of the 22,000 public schools in K-P.

During these visits, the ASDEOs observed teaching practices, school management, assessed students and provided on-the-spot feedback to teachers.

The ASDEOs have been trained to observe teacher competency based on national professional standards for teachers. They observe a class of 35 minutes using an Android-based application on a tablet provided by the K-PESED. The application can work independently, in offline mode and can transmit data after an officer returns to their office and connects with Wifi.

Expecting the initiative to bring about real change in the quality of teaching and learning, the K-PESED is now considering increasing the number of ASDEOs employed by the department so that they can regularly visit all primary schools of the province.

To maintain the quality of SQMI visits, each ASDEO is responsible for visiting 10 schools every month and 40 schools in a cycle. The ASDEO will then visit the same 40 schools during a second cycle, hence visiting a school twice a year to see if feedback was incorporated and the difference it made.

The results of the SQMI visits will then be compiled on K-PESEDs’ main server.

Data-driven decisions

The education department has linked all allied departments to its main server. The PITE is linked to observing the lack of teacher competencies so that effective training plans can be developed for improving professional skills. The DCTE is linked to observe the result of student’s assessments and to develop a strategy to improve them.

The department explained that this will help them collate data which can then be analysed to make data-driven decisions.

Talking to The Express Tribune, K-PESED Adviser Ajmal Khan said that ASDEOs have been provided with tablets with Android-based applications to store data from the classes they observe. Moreover, the ASDEOs can use these tablets to take pictures of the classes which are marked with their geographic locations.

This is then automatically shared with the education department and concerned officials as soon as the ASDEO connects to the internet.

“SQMI will bring a positive change in our education system, it will not only enhance the ability of teachers but will also improve their teaching skills,” said K-PESE Minister Atif Khan.

Atif explained that previously, government schools were irregularly monitored and teachers employed there collected salaries without even showing up.

He went on to claim that the incumbent government, through these initiatives, can not only monitor teacher’s availability in schools but also improve their teaching skills and keep a check on them.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2018.