Comparison of Teacher Training and Development: A Case Study of Army Public Schools & Colleges and Federal Government Educational Institutions in Pakistan

Training and development are the most crucial elements of Human Resource Management. The training is done to bridge the gap between current and expected practices. Every organization tries to train its employees according to its own requirements and culture. Due to its immense importance, the researcher selected this area for his current research study. This is a case study about the two major systems of education Army Public Schools & Colleges (APS&C) and Federal Govt Educational Institutions (FGEIs). Both of the setups try to provide better training and development opportunities to their employees to meet the challenges successfully. Objective of this study is to find out the current practices and problems of both the setups regarding teachers’ training and development. The population was consisted of 125 heads and 5005 teachers from both setups of Rawalpindi and sample of 125 (100%) heads and 500 (10%) teachers were selected. The findings of the study show that both of the setups provide need-based training but the federal directorate is little more concerned with this. In both setups heads and teachers acknowledges the importance of training and development in an organization. APS&C is more focused on the content areas of training whereas the other one is somehow generalized in the selection of content and subject matter. Teachers of APS&C are comparatively more enthusiastic and attend training with interest.  Therefore, the researcher recommended that incentives should be provided to the teachers to raise their motivation level for such activities

Statistical optimization for deconstruction of poplar substrate by dilute sulfuric acid for bioethanol production

In this study, response surface methodology was used to study the effects of H2SO4, concentrations, substrate loading and residence time on liberation of reducing sugars (RS), total sugars (TS) and total phenolic compounds from poplar leaves and twigs. Box–Behnken design with three variables and three levels showed maximum release of total phenolic compounds (57.39 mg/ml) corresponding to 0.8% H2SO4 concentration, 15% substrate level with residence time of 4 h. Under these conditions, the TS and RS released up to 161.20 and 5.24 mg/ml, respectively. Analysis of the pretreated substrate by Fourier transform infra-red and X-ray diffraction revealed the effectiveness of pretreatment conditions. Second-order polynomial equation using analysis of variance was employed for analyzing the results. The proposed model was found very significant with F-value of 48.39. The R2 and adjusted R2 values also revealed the accuracy of predicted response