By Uzma Zafar
Islamabad: Pakistan’s Federal Minister of Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood has said that Iron Brother China was an inspiration for the regional countries especially Pakistan in the field of education. Shafqat Mahmood attended Huawei’s ‘Igniting Innovation through Education’ summit as a key-note speaker. The Minister was amongst a prominent list of keynote speakers including experts from the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) ecosystem, government, and international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
Hosted in partnership with the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, the summit recognized the role of education as a catalyst for change, bringing people closer and making society more sustainable and prosperous. Shafqat Mahmood said China had helped Pakistan a great deal in the education sector. “We are proud of China’s friendship,” he said. The Minister spoke about the unprecedented challenge brought by the pandemic that called for innovation and digitalization of education. Within 15 days of the pandemic, the Ministry acquired an exclusive television channel to launch a Tele-school. For ten hours a day, lessons for Class 1-12 were broadcast in different modules. An SMS system was established with the help of telecom companies to give students a medium for feedback on the lessons. “Knowing that not everyone has access to television sets, especially in the rural parts of the country, a radio school was also launched by the Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan,” he added.
The Minister further said that for Higher Education Institutes, all mechanisms, including classes and teaching examinations, were moved online. This transition came with its own set of challenges, the biggest one being unavailability of stable internet in some parts of the country, where the government is planning to further expand to ensure that the entire country is covered.
