Exploring the global citizenship

A group of 25 teachers are attending the course.

ISLAMABAD:

After its success in 2011, the British Council launched the second Global Citizenship Course (GCC) in collaboration with National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) under their Global School Partnerships (GSP) programme on Monday.

Funded by the UKAid, the GSP programme of the British Council is an ‘effective way’ of raising awareness about global issues among the young people, mainly students, their teachers and families. It aims to motivate young people to build a fairer and more sustainable world, said an official.

Regional Education Adviser of British Council Nils Tomes inaugurated the course. Also present on the occasion were the Pro-Rector NUST Vice Admiral (retd) Muhammad Mushtaq and Dean NUST Business School (NBS) Dr Ashfaq Khan. Both Nils and Muhammad Mushtaq reiterated the importance of GCC in the lives of teachers as education providers.

Mushtaq said that NUST had collaborated with the British Council in various programmes and that the institution was happy to volunteer in hosting the GCC.

A group of 25 teachers from all over Pakistan are participating in the GCC. The two weeks’ course kicked off on Monday. “It will provide the teachers with an opportunity to develop the knowledge and skills required to educate students to live a more informed, purposeful and active life,” said an official. “It will present a unique and critical look at the core concepts and ideas related to global citizenship,” he added. The participants will consider these ideas through the use of active participatory strategies that will enable them to translate their learning into effective practice. They will be asked to design lessons and unit plans for classroom teaching in global citizenship projects aimed at further understanding intercultural settings, he said.

Dr Bernadette Dean, Principal St. Joseph’s College for Girls, Karachi and former Principal, Kinnaird College, Lahore has designed the course and will be delivering it. She said that participants from both the sessions of GCC will be developing publications which will go towards improving the course further.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 14^th, 2012.