Law students need to be sensitive to different perspectives, say experts

Workshop discusses teaching students to analyse and understand legal, economic, political and social materials

ISLAMABAD: The curriculum of law education needs to teach students to work with sensitivity, rather than limiting themselves to objective reality of legal clauses, experts said at a workshop on Developing Law Curriculum in Pakistan.

The two-day extensive dialogue and capacity building workshop on was organised at National Academy of Higher Education (NAHE) Islamabad. The workshop was conducted in collaboration with the Warwick Law School University of Warwick United Kingdom.

Following decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in August 2018, HEC has initiated revamping and re-writing of the Law Curriculum.

The workshop discussed giving students an in-depth knowledge and understanding, more specifically, to acquire a comprehensive understanding of law.

The experts at the workshop shop hammered out how to demonstrate ability to work effectively in groups, taking account of expressed opinions and dealing with them effectively, work with sensitivity, recognising different perspectives.

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They also pored over how to demonstrate an advanced ability to deliver effective oral presentation skills; how to critically engage with and evaluate the emerging jurisprudence and the ability to critically analyse, examine and understand legal, economic, political and social materials.

An important aspect of this initiative is to simultaneously provide opportunities for those tasked with delivery of the curriculum to be exposed to teaching and learning approaches in jurisdiction beyond Pakistan.

Warwick Law School Professor Dr Shaheen Sardar Ali was resource person for the workshop. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Associate Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law.

Sixteen faculty members from five universities of twin cities having Law Departments, including Federal Urdu University, Quaid-i-Azam University, Bahria University, International Islamic University, Fatima Jinnah Women University and a special representative from Pakistan Bar Council, Islamabad attended the workshop.

HEC Executive Director Lt Gen (Retd) Muhammad Asghar distributed certificates among the participants and lauded the efforts and contribution of Dr Shaheen Sardar Ali for designing and developing this workshop. He assured all possible support and facilitation from HEC to uplift the standards of curriculum and to nurture research culture in the faculty of Law.

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Terming Law as a valuable subject of Social Sciences, he said that HEC will take care of every requirement of the curriculum as per recommendations of the workshop and to equip the relevant faculty with modern tools, techniques and pedagogies focusing the desired results.

In his remarks, NAHE Director General Fida Hussain highlighted role of the Academy, adding that this workshop is the first of its kind for developing Law curriculum.

He further stated that in future, focus will be given to pedagogy in Law training and these trainings will be extended to other parts of the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2019.