Strengthening teacher education

The quality of education provided by the public sector in Pakistan has been poor due to low levels of teacher competence, lack of classroom-based support for teachers, poor quality of textbooks and learning materials, lack of systems to assess student learning outcomes, uneven supervision, insufficient resources for critical teaching and learning materials, and weak sector governance and management (World Bank, "Third Punjab Education" 2006). This situation analysis attempts to undertake a comprehensive review of teacher education in Pakistan. It also attempts to answer several of the key questions raised in the Ministry of Education's Green Paper on Teachers, including: (1) what are the deficiencies of the current training regimes?; (2) how can teacher training be improved?; (3) will an accreditation system help?; and (4) what would be a good accreditation system? Section I reviews all teacher education policies, plans, and programs since the 1990s. Section II discusses the relevant organizational and institutional structures at the national and provincial levels. An analysis of all the major ongoing and planned initiatives in teacher education is provided in Section III. Sect

Source: DEC abstract, PN-ADI-376 (2006). The source's own text.