Buland: Elevating Pakistan
Buland Foundation, along with some volunteering individuals, working on the grave situation of education inequality in Pakistan. Everyone associated with this has witnessed the educational inequality, its aftereffects, and understands the need for small efforts from individuals or groups. This amounted to seeking equality on an issue that is the major dividing factor in society itself. With the chasm between the haves and the have-nots continuously widening and the state refusing to take responsibility for education — Article 25-A in the constitution of Pakistan is notwithstanding — there is no hope that the playing field can be leveled for all. At present, Pakistan stands second across the globe and has the highest number of out-of-school children aged from 5 to 16 years with an estimated 22.8 million children not attending school. The more worrisome situation is, almost half of the 10-year-old students having achieved the linguistics competence of a 6-year-old, 50% of the 5th grader lacks competency of 2nd grade.
Given preference to every aspect, Buland Foundation concluded to start a teacher training program as its landing page. Time demands to fortify the teachers within the disregarded educational infrastructure. To embed the understanding in the teacher about their relationships with students. Teacher-student relation needs to be converted to character building instead of curriculum-based.
“There can be no 21st-century learning without 21st-century teachers”.
Progress
Because of the Covid-19 situation, we decided to make our projection with social media. We made social media accounts and started reaching people for the importance of the project. We were able to identify the potential area for our plan execution. We had to talk with stakeholders about the training. We were able to find resource persons having a reputable career in training. We worked to identify the potential topics for our audience in the context of achieving our goal. With those effective topics and flawless training, we are gradually moving towards a positive impact on society. So far we have conducted three webinars with a positive impact expected. There are more webinars scheduled for next week and coming.
Problem
The biggest challenge for us was community behavior and their engagement. On our social media platforms, we received a very good response. We were able to get 200 impressions on our Facebook Page. But Participation in the webinar, the graph of community engagement dropped down. On the first webinar, we were able to engage up to 30 participants whereas, in the second webinar, the number of participants was limited to 13. So that was a challenge to make the community believe that the training of teachers is really important. So that the gap between higher-level education institutes and lower level Institutes can be filled.
Solution
We followed one of Amal principles, Kam Kam Kam. We are using networking to reach out to more and more deserving people. We are contacting our friends, friends of friends, teachers, Amal batch fellows, and university fellows to raise awareness about our project. This will help us to spread our message and more community engagements. We decided to make an attraction for the participants by providing them e-certificates.
Impact
The webinars that have been conducted till now covered the following three important topics;
- Impact of teacher’s behavior on students
- How to handle slow learners?
- Fostering critical thinking and collaboration in the classroom
In the first webinar, the guest speaker highlighted the negative behaviors of teachers toward the students and their effects on the productivity of students. This helped the teachers to recognize their negative behaviors and how they can fix these behaviors. They learned about strategies that can contribute to filling the gap between the students and teachers. The experiences shared by the trainer helped teachers better understand the students’ psyche.
In the second webinar, the trainer highlighted the causes that can affect the learning of students. He also explained the strategies by which a teacher can improve the efficiency of slow learners. This helped teachers in better understanding the ways by which slow learners can be handled. The teachers learned to identify and control the causes that are reducing the efficiency of students.
In the third webinar, the trainer focused on ways that can be used by teachers to make the students think rationally and to analyze any given situation. She elaborated that collaborative learning among students can enhance the learning, communication, and confidence among the students. She also provided some useful tips to teachers to implement these two important aspects in classrooms.
Our Approach for the future
“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” — John F. Kennedy
After the lockdown, schools are resuming with much more enthusiasm and activities. This is the time to stir the community which is the dire need for their effectiveness towards the community. Imagine standing before first generation learners in Pakistan, wondering how one could bring the opportunities of the world to a small village. But it takes time and learning to truly see how to harness this power. Ongoing professional development can bridge the difference between a teacher who is frustrated with educational infrastructure and a teacher who embraces it to help students analyze information, collaborate, and communicate, preparing for an ever-changing world.
