A two day conference on “Issues and Challenges in Higher Education” collaborated by the British Council concludes today at Kinnaird College for Women.
While addressing the first session, Dr. Shahid Siddiqui suggested equal economic, cultural and educational life chances to be the primary needs for change towards a better education system. He highlighted the importance of social equality, teaching training qualification, enhancement and activation of resources in leading towards a positive transformation as far as education is concerned.
The session was co chaired by Dr Amin Rehmani and Dr Arfa Sayeda. The panelist included Prof Asma Jamil, Mazna Toosy, Dr Asma Aftab, Dr Sadaf Bokhari and Col Azeem Ilyas.
Dr Tariq Rehmani talked about historical biases in textbooks and how these biases are promoting intolerance and narrow world view.
The keynote speaker for the second session Dr Tayyba Tamim explained how language use in our culture is related to identity and how English was a symbol of status and a problem for students with less privileged backgrounds in private sector higher education domains.
Dr Saliha Naghmi chaired the second session the panelist included Priscilla Lall, Dr Nadia Anjum, Dr Sabeen Qureshi, Fakhra Shahid and Shenaz Chaudhry, Musarat Mashadi.
Dr Amin Rehmani discussed how assessment system can be improved by restructuring the examination questions.
Different workshops on various topics were also conducted after the sessions of the conference. Aafia Qureshi conducted a workshop titled as “Blind Man and The Elephant” in which she suggested that beliefs regarding teaching should be reconsidered. She presented some important areas which are common in a teacher’s life.
Dr Asma Aftab during her workshop suggested some important ways for improving grammar. She said that a teacher should have exposure to the text which will also improve his/her own language. She also suggested that grammar should be taught inductively.
Sabeen Qureshi suggested that action research can help in teaching and learning as it refines one’s instructional strategies in order to improve student learning and outcome.
At the end of the session, certificates were distributed among the participants and organisers of the conference. Dr Rukhsana David thanked and appreciated the whole team on arranging a successful conference.
