Message From the Executive Director

There are several elements that need to come together to ensure quality education for all children, but nothing compares with the central role of the teacher. Research shows that a child’s teacher can make a bigger difference to his or her educational success than most other school factors.  

Hence if Pakistan is to provide quality education to its children, the effort must be rooted in raising teacher quality. There is great potential for achieving this goal by reforming pre-service teacher training institutions. By setting high standards for admission, teacher education institutions can filter out individuals who do not have the capability and passion for the profession. A longer duration for a teacher education program, such as 4 years for a B.Ed. undergraduate program, can ensure that prospective teachers get the time to internalize the knowledge, skills and dispositions of a professional 21st century teacher.   

However, there continue to be systemic barriers that are undermining the delivery of quality teacher education. A 2014 study2 of government teacher education institutions revealed that most of these institutions are deficient in basic facilities (such as laboratories, libraries, transport etc.) and competent teacher education faculty that is needed to adequately implement the 4-year B.Ed. degree program.   

The B.Ed. (Honors) curriculum demands teaching strategies including collaborative, inquiry, and activity-based teaching approaches. This requires highly qualified and experienced faculty that are well-versed in the use of such strategies. However, the profiles of the faculty collected during the study revealed that a majority of the faculty in the universities are not familiar with such teaching strategies. Among the available faculty, more than 95% did not have proper exposure to school education, especially teaching at the elementary level.  

Ensuring quality in the delivery of the B.Ed. curriculum requires qualified and creative teacher education faculty (lecturers and professorial ranks), who are experienced in the design and delivery of student-centric pedagogies. An effective teacher educator for the B.Ed. degree program must at least hold the following-  

In Pakistan, and all over the world, schoolteachers undergo pre-service teacher education before entering the teaching profession. But what training and education is available for the teacher educators themselves?  There is a significant knowledge and skills base needed to be an effective and inspirational teacher educator, but this is not explicitly addressed in most education systems around the world.  

Hence, SITE has been established to fill this gap by developing quality teacher-educators/ lecturers for B.Ed. Teacher Education Institutions across the country. Its M.Phil. (Teacher Educator Development) program will be the first of its kind in Pakistan and in fact very few institutions around the world are presently offering programs specifically designed for teacher-educators.   

To develop the curriculum for this graduate program, Durbeen partnered with the University of Oxford and the Malala Fund in May 2022. Oxford University presently offers an M.Sc. in Teacher Education, which focuses on developing teacher educators. Hence Oxford University was well-positioned in developing a similar program for Pakistan’s teacher-educators. From 2022-26, Durbeen worked with experts from Oxford, and subject experts from within Pakistan, to take best practices from Oxford’s M.Sc. program, learnings from the Durbeen’s own B.Ed. program and tailor them to create an M.Phil. in Education (Teacher Educator Development) degree programme unique to Pakistan’s needs. 

These highly trained teacher-educators will go on to teach the B.Ed. program in the Government Colleges of Education in their respective districts, where in turn, they will develop top-quality school teachers for public schools across Pakistan.

Salma Ahmed Alam

Executive Director
Sindh Institute of Teacher Education (SITE)