First ever training for 13,000 college teachers in Punjab

The Higher Education Department has prepared PC-I for the training of 13,000 public sector college teachers all over Punjab with a cost of Rs 727 million under the Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF) 2008-11. The programme will cater the need of training of college teachers all over Punjab.
The scheme is the first of its kind in the history since the inception of Pakistan. The provincial Education Department sources told APP that the programme was aimed at capacity building of teachers and education managers as well as the improvement in governance and service delivery of education sector.
The Higher Education Department and DPI (Colleges) were the authorities responsible for the execution of the programme. Under this scheme, the private and government companies (like The City School, Agha Khan & Directorate of Staff Development) have been invited to bid for training Master Trainers. The selected firm would prepare training modules as per requirement of the education Department and provide training to 500 selected education managers like the DOs, Principals and Dy. DOs and Master Trainers of the same number.
These 500 Master Trainers would later train the 13000 college teachers across Punjab over a period of two years. Third Party Evaluation was part of this programme and Rs 1 million have been dedicated for this purpose.
The teachers would be divided into maximum 30 people batches and the duration would not exceed 30 days. It is worth mentioning that the Punjab government implemented many teachers training programmes in pedagogy and elective disciplines in the past. However, these programmes were confined to the school level. The need for the training of college teachers was never felt as seriously as today.
It has been realised by the authorities and the stakeholders that the education system and the processes involved in the conceptual and operational make up of this human capital have almost become paralysed. The college teachers and administrators are recruited and assigned to perform the most important and sensitive of the social functions without any formal training.