US. Supports Innovative Children's Learning Program in Pakistan
WASHINGTON: An experimental education program for Pakistani girls funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is bringing about dramatic changes in their school performance.
The program, named "Releasing Confidence and Creativity" (RCC), aims "to improve the quality of learning and teaching during the early primary years," according to a USAID fact sheet. The five-year, $4.5-million RCC program, due for completion end of 2006, is managed by the Aga Khan Foundation through six local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in 155 state-supported primary schools in the southern provinces of Balochistan and Sindh.
This pilot program is aimed at girls 3 to 7 years old in rural areas -- girls whose education is widely neglected in Pakistan. The program is in place in 85 primary schools in the districts of Pishin, Ziarat, Mastung, Lasbella, Loralai, Killa Abdullah and Chaagi in Balochistan, and in 70 primary schools in the districts of Hyderabad and Khairpur in Sindh.
RCC is designed to support changes in primary schools in Pakistan by emphasizing critical thinking and learning through creative children's games and group activities such as storytelling, recitation of poetry and individual activities geared to a child's particular interest, such as painting and acting, instead of the traditional rote memorization of prescribed textbooks.
Traditional teacher-centered approaches are replaced by interactive teaching techniques that also involve peer interaction. Parents of the children are also encouraged to become involved in storytelling, arts and crafts, and other activities in the classroom.
Randy Hatfield, the Aga Khan Foundation's program manager for education in Pakistan, said in a telephone interview from Islamabad that students involved in the program in state-run primary schools behave in a totally different manner from what he had otherwise observed during his 15 years in Pakistan.
"There was a significant change in the classroom scene during my visits. Instead of the little girls giggling shyly at the visitor and being prodded by the teacher to ask or answer questions, the RCC-trained girls displayed more confidence and boldly answered as well as initiated questions without much help from the teacher," Hatfield said.
Hatfield said the confidence and creativity method of early childhood learning has become so attractive to parents in some of the rural communities that in one instance they raised $20,000 -- an enormous sum in rural Pakistan -- to install the program in their schools. Some even donated land and offered other services, while others transferred their children from private schools to state-run schools with RCC programs, he said.
"I have held meetings with the national coordinator of primary schools in Pakistan in the Ministry of Education, and they have expressed interest that this program should be adopted in the other provinces of Pakistan," Hatfield said. There are 160,000 primary schools in Pakistan.
"An RCC program is a low-cost model with start-up costs of only $2,000. To incorporate the RCC program in all the existing primary schools in Pakistan would cost just over $3-million," he said.
However, Hatfield noted that the RCC program catered to children only up to the first two years of schooling. He said that it is important that children of all ages be able to benefit from the RCC education.
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