Global Action Week: ‘Every child needs a trained teacher’

Campaign kicks off to demand professional growth for teachers.

LAHORE:

The Global Action Week (GAW) for education kicked off across the province on Sunday. Several civil society organisations will arrange poster painting competitions, a children’s parliament and various other activities to create awareness about the education crisis in the country.

The GAW, themed ‘Every child needs a teacher - trained teachers for all’, will be held under the aegis of the Global Campaign for Education, a worldwide civil society movement to end the education crisis in more than 100 countries. The GAW has also been sponsored by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

The campaign will try to create awareness regarding the lack of trained teachers across the world. It calls for ‘professionally trained’ and ‘qualified’ teachers, along with a system that ensures transparent and merit-based recruitment. The campaign demands that the rights of teachers, including their professional development, training and salaries be addressed at the policy level across the world.

Bunyad Foundation Planning Manager Riaz Ahmed said, “Occasions like this one serve as reminders of the goals yet to be achieved.” Ahmed, who has been part of the Foundation for t 10 years, says Bunyad has been working to extend literacy to the under-privileged segments of the society, especially girls in rural areas. “Bunyad has planned several walks, seminars and interactive competitions for the GAW in 13 districts including Multan, Muzaffargarh, Sialkot, Hafizabad, Lahore, Rahim Yar Khan, and Bahawalpur,” he said.



The campaign will also aim to educate parents on the need to send their children to school, Ahmed said. “We hope to inspire parents into realising that getting their children educated is not a choice,” he said. The Foundation has a children’s parliament lined up in the wake of the coming elections to demonstrate democratic values and importance of education to children. “It would be wrong to say that the civil society has not made any progress in alleviating the education crisis,” he said, “The difference does not seem that significant because of the unbridled increase in population, especially in southern Punjab.”

According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), in 2010, Pakistan ranked 25th in the pupil-teacher ratio at the primary school level, with the ratio of 40:1. The world aggregate for pupil-teacher ratio stands at 24:1. While the percentage of female teachers at the primary school level stands at 47.7 per cent in Pakistan, the world aggregate stands at approximately 62 per cent.

In order to achieve universal primary education by 2015, 1.7 million new teachers have to be recruited worldwide, according to the Global Campaign for Education’s statistics. The UIS also stated that south and west Asia had the second highest need for primary teachers: 114,000 positions.

The Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, as part of the GAW, has planned several activities to highlight the role of teachers. The organisation will use these activities to identify the type of teachers that students ‘like best’. ITA Research and Documentation Officer Saheem Khizar said they would arrange drawing, painting and creative writing to see which subjects and teachers the students liked most. “We hope to check which teachers are creating an engaging and interesting environment for students to learn in,” he said.

The ITA will conduct activities in 12 schools in Lahore and schools in Rahim Yar Khan, Multan and Muzaffargarh. Save the Children and ITA will collaborate for the GAW in Muzaffargarh and arrange activities in 20 schools.

The global campaign will continue until April 27.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2013.