Education in Pakistan is the basic responsibility of Ministry of Education and provincial governments. The federal government mostly helps with curriculum development, authorization, and finance. To provide quality education different government organizations and branches, and public schools are working on finding solutions at different levels. Teachers play a key role in learning process by doing their best to teach students based on their capacities. Still Pakistan’s system of education is facing many problems and one of the most serious problems is lack of parent focus on their children’s education. There are many aspects which still persist and affect the role of parents for their child’s education like lack of social demand for education for all, uneducated parent and family members, limited family income, and extensive field work and domestic chores that both children and parents preform. There is a need for activities that can raise awareness among parents about their vital role in their children’s schooling and child inclusion in learning.
Considering the identified problems during the focus group discussion with parents, the EEQAP project team with the help teachers and Village Education Committee (VEC) members have developed a plan to hold regular monthly parent teacher meetings (PTMs). Parent teacher meetings have been established in all 18 intervention schools of EEQAP project in Bahawalnagar, Pakistan. This initial step we started has since spread and other schools are now following the parent teacher meetings plan and implementing at their schools. Some very encouraging early results are being observed through the implementation of these parent teacher monthly meetings. Parent focus on child education and child punctuality in school has increased; a necessity in order for children to participate in all school activities. Parents have also started helping their children at home in completing their homework and allotting time for their children to complete homework as well as participate in sports and games. Parent efforts are ultimately increasing child confidence in class and all school activities as well which is also increasing the satisfaction of parent that their children are learning and getting an education. Teachers’ focus on child education has also increased because parents have asked about their child’s performance and sometimes visit the school to observe their child’s learning.
Teachers’ have also done a mobilization campaign when they feel weak responses from parents. They visit children’s homes with VEC members and they did mobilization of parent on education, discussion about child performance and guide parent about sending children to school and attend monthly PTMs.
Now parents should continue their efforts of focusing on their children’s education to be fully engaged with their children, to bond with their children, and to see the world from the perspective of their child. However, children who live in poverty often face socioeconomic obstacles that impede their rights to have playtime, thus affecting their healthy social-emotional development. Furthermore, on equal footing, Project EEQAP has used the modern student centered teaching methods, project-based learning (PBL) and learning strategies implementation like discussion, student dialogues, involvement of students in activities based learning and routine teaching strategies to promote sophisticated epistemological beliefs among student for child inclusion in learning. Yes, a small step of milestone has been achieved but still the long journey has to continue.
Written by Munib Sohail, Taimoor Ali Khan, and Muhammad Rehan Shaikh
Edited by Mara McKown