Over 0.6 million children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa out of schools

In connection with Global Campaign for Education (GCE) Society for Protection of Rights of Child (SPARC) arranged a dialogue on the subject "Every Child Needs a Teacher". Jehanzeb Khan, Regional Manager, SPARC said that elementary and secondary education is one of the biggest of all departments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with more than 1,62,000 employees. There are 3.872 million students in more than 28,000 government institutions and more than 121,000 teachers.
He said that almost 600,000 school going age children are out of school net in the province. There are so many factors which are included poverty, access to school, militancy etc but one of the major factors is the unavailability of a teacher particularly a trained teacher.
Principal of Regional Institute for Teacher's Education, Attaullah said that the single biggest measure we can take to give these children a chance to realise their right to education is to make sure each and every one of them has access to a trained teacher. Amanullah Khan Director Academic and Regulatory Authority Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education said, "Training of teachers is absolutely imperative to guarantee that being 'in school' also means 'learning', but right now many of the children who have made it into a classroom may well be there with poorly-trained teachers-and could well leave primary education barely able to read or write.
Imran Takkar Program Manager said that it is the responsibility of provincial government to make sure that all teachers - new recruits as well as those already in classrooms-are well-trained, have access to ongoing training and are treated as professionals-with decent pay and conditions.
At the end of the discussion suggested the following recommendation by all the participants.
---- Develop and enforce high national standards of training, developed with the teaching profession and in reference to international standards.
---- Undertake a gender review of national education sector plans, and develop long-term strategies to recruit, train, support and compensate women teachers.
---- Ensure initial pre-service training for all new recruits to teaching that covers subject knowledge, pedagogy and training in diagnosis of students' learning needs, with sufficient time to develop these skills.
---- Provide ongoing in-service training and professional development for all teachers, making use of communities of practice and following up on training given.
---- Ensure that all teachers are being paid a decent, professional wage; negotiate and agree pay scales with teacher unions; do not use pay as a system of individualised punishment and reward based on high-stakes testing or other "merit" pay and
---- Strengthen school leadership and promote the establishment of school management committees that include students, teachers, parents and local community members.