Malakand University: K-P’s first English Self Access Centre to open

The SAC will help improve teaching practices of the English department.

ISLAMABAD:

The first English Self Access Centre (SAC) in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa will be established at the University of Malakand (UoM) at a cost of Rs1.5 million.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the UoM signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) here on Tuesday to establish the SAC under the second phase of English Language Teaching Reforms Project (ELTR). The MoU was signed by HEC Executive Director Dr Sohail Naqvi and UoM Vice-Chancellor Dr Muhammad Rasul Jan.

The centre will facilitate the UoM faculty and serve as a hub for English for English teachers across K-P. The centre will facilitate teacher training, especially in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and Internet Mediated Language Learning (IML). Latest internet and computer tools will be available to teachers and researchers for linguistic courses to keep them updated about the latest trends.

HEC Director General Learning Innovation Noor Amna Malik briefed the participants about the ELTR Project that has so far imparted training to 1,537 teachers. She said that E-learning is the first and foremost demand of the modern era and these centres will facilitate different aspects of it.

Under the Phase-I of ELTR, SACs were established at Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) Islamabad and Bahauddin Zakriya University (BZU) in Multan. The second phase of ELTR focuses more on facilitating English language and literature faculty across Pakistan.

Dr Naqvi said that incorporating technology in the regular learning process is imperative and these centres will accelerate teaching as well as the learning process. He added that HEC has designed special courses for teachers to improve the level of English being taught in universities.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2011.