Rehabilitating Closed Schools: A Daunting Challenge for Pakistan

There are 6034 non-operational schools in Pakistan\u27s southern province of Sindh further complicating the work of the donor agencies; more than half of these non-operational schools (3843) only exist on papers. These shadow schools exist only to usurp international aid earmarked for education. Our research shows that proximity to the population; unavailability of teachers; and lack of infrastructure are some of the fundamental causes driving the closure of more than thirteen percent of schools. Our position is that a large number of these schools can be rehabilitated but that requires a three-phased plan. If implemented, proposed plan would enhance transparency for the international donors, augment direct involvement of local communities, and restore a substantial number of schools to provide primary education to more than 150,000 boys and girls

Teacher Perception About Implementation Strategy of B.Ed Teaching practice in Real School Classrooms: Issues and Challenges

Teaching practice is the core component of all pre-service teacher education programs. Through teaching practice, a novice teacher is assumed to have inculcated a supposedly viable pedagogic experience to transfer the core competency of the subject knowledge to students in real classroom situation. This study encompasses the challenges and issues that the novice teachers experience at post-training level of their B.Ed programme of studies. The investigations also enlighten the gaps that the trained teachers have shared with the researchers. The study highlights the extent to which the on-training components of teaching practice is reflected in the attitude of the trained teachers while implementing the set of learned skills in real classrooms. Study participants comprised randomly selected n = 120 student-teachers who had obtained their Bachelors Degree in Education in 2008. SPSS v16 independent sample t-test was used to measure the difference in the mean perception scores of the two groups of teachers. The tested hypotheses indicated that the mean scores of the two groups of sampled teachers were not significantly different. Student-teachers’ interviews revealed that teaching practice in the B.Ed programme was ineffective from the implementation perspectives. Teaching methods and techniques employed during the coursework were only lecture based and did not help novice teachers implement innovative classroom teaching techniques. Experiences of the two trained groups of teachers showed no significant difference on the basis of B.Ed teaching practice objectives and its implementation in professional teaching contexts