Teachers Without Frontiers seeks to bring innovation into the classroom

KARACHI:

With an estimated 30 million internet users, Pakistan has an amazing telecommunications and internet outreach that nevertheless remains underutilised for educational solutions. Could this wealth of resources at our fingertips be extended to fetch innovation in learning to our classrooms, especially in the far-flung regions?

After much deliberation about this, the Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA), in collaboration with Dubai Cares, came up with ‘Teachers Without Frontiers’ (TWF), an ambitious initiative that was formally launched at Avari Towers on Friday.



TWF aims to connect primary and secondary teachers from all the existing educational systems - public, private, seminary and non-formal - with experts to help them attain professional excellence.

“This initiative is a continuous professional development programme to enable teachers to augment their knowledge, skills and approach by way of a wide range of innovative learning opportunities,” ITA programmes director Baela Raza Jamil told The Express Tribune. “This is not a time-specific project; rather, we intend it to be a social movement, leading up to ownership by the community itself.”

In its pilot phase, the programme will focus on seven districts in the country - Korangi and Sukkur in Sindh, Quetta and Lasbela in Balochistan, Bahawalpur and Kasur in Punjab and Swat in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Jamil added that the concept of partnership lay at the heart of TWF in order to achieve sustainability. In this context, ITA has made linkages with provincial education departments, the private sector, teacher training institutions, learning solution providers and educational research bodies in Pakistan and beyond.

She highlighted the contribution of Dubai Cares CEO Tariq Muhammad Saleh alGurg, who provided USD265,000 for this initiative as well as giving USD8 million to promote education in Pakistan since 2008.

How TWF works

According to ITA learning innovations programme manager Muhammad Aamir, the first phase of TWF would link around 30 seasoned ‘super mentors’ to over 700 teachers from the seven districts.

In the second phase, which Aamir defined as a transformational stage mediated by an extensive six-week training programme, the super mentors will groom 100 teachers selected from the 700 applicants to become super mentors or TWF fellows themselves.

Each of these fellows, in turn, would train at least 100 more teachers in their areas, causing a chain reaction through rigorous blended methods and learning blocks pitched at the competency levels of Grades Five to Eight.

“The strength of the initiative is the blended-learning approach for teachers, which involves combining traditional face-to-face instruction with web-based online learning,” said Aamir. “This will offer each teacher a more personalised learning experience with increased control over the time, place and pace of their learning.”

To connect the teachers to technology, 3iLogic, ITA’s partner which offers e-learning solutions and training, has developed a dedicated mobile-friendly knowledge portal called Learning Chowk.

Yahya Farooqi, 3iLogic’s chief executive officer, envisioned this portal as a convenient platform for educational resources in English, Urdu and regional languages for teachers across the country. “It is a one-stop solution for teachers as continuous learners, trainers, material developers, research scholars and classroom practitioners,” he said, adding that it also encouraged the building of virtual communities of teachers to share their ideas.

Meanwhile, a Learners’ Support Centre - housing a resource room, reading centre, technology corner and training room - has also been established in each district as a hub accessible to public, private and community-based teachers.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2015.