Project Description

  1. Continuous Professional Development Plan for teachers of Islamabad Territory is one of the top priority needs. A brief research conducted on twenty different aspects and dimensions of CPD in ICT indicates that in-service teacher training is confronting serious issues, challenges, and gaps. These gaps mainly relate to system and structure; human and financial resources; CPD programs; coordination and linkages; and monitoring, evaluation, and follow-up.
  2. The CPD plan focuses on all the above five areas in detail. Each of the above areas further focuses on need assessment; SWAT analysis; Issues and gaps; strategic objectives to address the issues; Strategies to achieve the objectives; actions and activities to implement the strategy; implementation framework for each strategy/ activity; and output/outcome. Besides, the plan also includes CPD literature review; a proposed outline of teacher training contents, a monitoring and evaluation plan, and cost estimates.
  3. CPD literature review briefly covers concept, framework, CPD models (National and International), CPD in education policies and provincial education sector plans and CPD best practices, etc.
  4. In order to address the issues and gaps in system and structure, the plan proposes a full-fledged system and structure of CPD right from the training wing down to the school level following the principle of taking the training to school/classroom instead of taking the teacher to the training center. For the purpose of establishment and strengthening of Training Wing, Area Teacher Training and Resource Centers (TTRCs) for each of the six sectors, Cluster Resource Centers (CRCs) and Center School Resource Centers (CSRCs) have been proposed. CSRC will cater to the training needs of average 4-5 primary school teachers of the vicinity. The above-mentioned training institutions/ centers will be equipped with all the necessary facilities, services, equipment, and infrastructure, etc., initially through 5-year development project. In addition to the above, a separate purpose-built building for the training wing has been proposed to be constructed preferably in the premises of FCE or curriculum wing.
  5. Resources such as professional human resources, financial resources, and teaching-learning and instructional material-related resources are also the prime need of CPD. The plan proposes the creation of (seven permanent) primary education subject specialists, posts, and recruitment of competent and experienced experts against those positions, furthermore a full-time coordinator for each teacher training and resource center has been proposed. Besides, two teams “A” and “B” of qualified, experienced, and committed resource persons separately for male and female schools have been recommended for the development of teacher training manuals, teacher guides and other ICT-based teaching-learning material for CPD is another important input proposed in the plan. The plan also envisages strategies for effective and optimum utilization of existing teacher training budget as well as mobilization of additional resources as per need and requirement of CPD.
  6. The in-service teacher training program also greatly suffers due to a number of weaknesses, constraints, and issues. In order to ameliorate the situation, the plan suggests a number of strategies and actions such as training need assessment, CPD database creation, integration and use of ICT, training of resource persons, and institutionalization of a system of incentives and accountability for teachers. The main incentives proposed are CPD weightage in promotion, wavier of certain credit hours or practical for pre-service degree\certificate and special increments etc. The plan also recommends 4-5 best CPD models including TIG model and some best practices for replication and scale-up in ICT.
  7. Public private partnership (PPP) is totally missing. Coordination and linkages amongst different organizations and institutions responsible for pre and in-service teacher training is weak. In order to address these issues and challenges the plan recommends a permanent set up of PPP within Federal Directorate of Education. A number of other important strategies have been proposed to improve coordination and linkages amongst teacher training-related organizations.
  8. The existing system lacks monitoring, evaluation and follow-up of in-service teacher training programs, a plan for Monitoring and evaluation of CPD plan strategies and activities as well as resources has been added. M&E plan highlights the indicators, monitoring agency, frequency of monitoring and evaluation and suggests improvement/ corrective measures in the light of M&E results and findings.
  9. The major output\ outcome of the plan, inter alia, include well-established system and structure of CPD up to grass root; availability of qualified, competent and committed professionals both on a permanent and part-time basis; teaching-learning material developed, produced and disseminated; effective, relevant and sustainable CPD programs in place; and functional M&E system. In addition to that professionally developed, well-trained and motivated/committed teaching force is available which can serve as a model for the whole country. The overall impact may be a considerable improvement in the learning achievement of students and improved quality of education. Employment opportunities for few professionals may be another important output of the plan.
  10. The total estimated cost of the plan comes out to be around 100 million rupees during the 5-year plan period (2017-22). Annual cost is 20 million. The major cost is on the construction of 10-room purpose built building and salary of seven subject specialists. It has been proposed in the plan to mobilize the cost/budget through (PC-1) 5-year development project i.e Annual Development Program (ADP).