ISLAMABAD: Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed on Tuesday said that every civilized society gave due esteem to teachers, as teachers deserved high honour and dignity being role models for their students.
He was addressing the concluding ceremony of a two-day international conference entitled Professional Development in Higher Education: Trends and Practices, Prospects and Innovations.
The international conference was jointly organised by HEC and Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), Rawalpindi.
Dr. Arshad Ali, Executive Director, HEC, Mrs. Shaheen Khan, Adviser Learning Innovation, HEC, Fida Hussain, Director General LI, HEC and a large number of Vice Chancellors, faculty members and national and foreign researchers also present on the occasion.
Addressing the conference, “I compliment HEC for taking this very positive initiative by organising a conference on professional development in higher education,” he stated, adding that HEC had been the vanguard of higher education since 2002 and had brought about a revolution in the higher education sector.
He said learning was a continuous process and professional development of faculty was beneficial not only for teachers but also for students.
He underlined that provision of education needed to be ensured along with availability of equal opportunities to all men and women.
Senator Mushahid Hussain informed the conference that the vacant posts of Pakistan chairs, specified for Pakistani academics to serve the country from abroad, were being filled with the cooperation of HEC after a long wait for seven years.
He further said that seven out of 14 candidates to fill the positions were females. “Pakistan Chairs are very important means to project Pakistan’s soft image abroad,” he maintained.
The biggest battle, he observed, was the battle of ideas, and it was academia where ideas come from. So, he stressed, academia should come forward to serving the country amidst the prevailing information warfare.
In his welcome address, Dr. Arshad Ali said professional development in higher education was the key component that ensures quality of education.
“The role of a teacher is significant in today’s world where an average student has easy access to knowledge through internet,” he said, adding that a teacher enabled students through arguments and analyses to benefit from the right information.
He stressed the need for promoting student-centric learning, as students come from different backgrounds as well as different competencies.
He said HEC was committed to professional development of teachers, as it followed the policy of appropriately equipping teachers to enable them to enhance quality and groom leadership for future.
The Executive Director revealed that HIC LI Division trained 500 teachers annually under its four Faculty Development Programmes.
He assured that the recommendations of conference would be examined for materialisation.
Earlier, Fida Hussain shed light on the purpose of the conference and presented the recommendations made during its four sessions.
The recommendations, he said, include finalisation of roadmap regarding faculty development, designing of faculty development programmes, revision of pedagogy, learning from professional development theories, establishment of faculty development centres, making policy level changes, and driving professional development framework on the basis of research.
During the conference, four sessions were held which covered a number of topics including a Repertoire for Learning in Outcome based Education Paradigm; Improving Students’ Learning in Distance Education by Learning Style based Teaching; Courageous Fellowship in Higher Education Commission; Pedagogical Skill Development in Teachers’ Preparation; Faculty Development at Tertiary Level; and From Banking Model to Critical Pedagogy: Challenges and Constraints in University Classrooms.
The speakers also expressed their views on Quality Teachers for Quality Education; Prospects and Insufficiency of B.Ed (Honours) Curriculum for New Teachers; Conceptualising Core Practices for Professional Development of Novice; Professional Development of Academics in Malaysian Higher Education Institutions; Effect of Meta cognitive Instructional Strategies on Prospective Teachers Comprehension in Physics; Neuro-linguistic Programming and Effective Language Teaching in Pakistani Academe; Understanding the Epistemological Beliefs and Metacognition of Science Teachers; Articulating and Operationalising Pedagogic Messages; Teachers Attitude towards Need for Reflective Practice; Situating Teachers Professional Development; Problems and Challenges Faced at University Level; and Microteaching in Professional Development of Novice Teachers in Pakistan.
The second day session topics included ‘When Teaching Paradigm, Technology and Trend Meet Together’, Social Loafing: Nexus of Biometric Attendance System on Teacher’s Performance at Hazara University, Mansehra, Web-based Language Learning Tools, Role of Information and Communication Technology in Quality Enhancement and Value Education, Effectiveness of Reciprocal Teaching and Computer Assisted Instruction versus Traditional Teaching, Necessity and Applicability of Software and Internet for Better Classroom Teaching, Effectiveness of Digital Story Telling in ESL Classrooms, Using Social Networking Sites for Enriching Teaching Learning Process, Effect of Faculty Training Workshop on Research Attitude and Research, and Technology Mediated Educational Model.
Comments
Comments are closed.