Students learning below par

A research associate says the results for students of rural areas were very poor.

LAHORE:
The South Asia Forum for Education Development (SAFED) and the Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) have completed a survey of learning outcomes in four to 16 year old students across 21 districts of the country.

Sufyan Jabbar, a research associate at the ITA, said that the results for students of rural areas were very poor. He said that English, Urdu and mathematics scores of most students were below the standards for their age group. He said that the ITA designed special tools to assess students’ learning outcomes. He added that it selected two volunteers from each of the 30 villages and arranged a three-day training programme for them at the district level.


The survey was a part of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Pakistan 2010. It was conducted in 30 villages in each of the 21 districts. Of these, 13 were in the Punjab, three in Balochistan, two each in Sindh and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and one in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). Baela Raza Jamil, the ITA programmes director, said that the ASER Pakistan 2010 survey report would be completed by January 15, 2010.

Similar surveys would now be conducted in five districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, four of Sindh, two of Balochistan and one of Gilgit-Baltistan. These would begin from Sunday.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 31st, 2010.
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