Since her school became a SIP-supported school in 2016, Gul has seen firsthand the shift toward a more inclusive, child-centred approach. And the results speak for themselves. With greater participation by students, teachers and community, the programme has also improved grades dramatically.

In 2015, the number of students passing exams was only 64%. By 2017, the percentage shot up to 92%. In 2018, the school won a “School of the Year” award in recognition of these achievements.

Gul has been a teacher for over 7 years. Prior to this, she worked in a hospital for 15 years. Gul decided to transition careers and become a teacher because she believes that “students are the ‘builders’ of our country—the future leaders.”

When asked about the challenges she faces as a teacher, she laughs and says that she is used to difficult work. Her previous career in healthcare prepared her well to interact with people, including parents and young children.

A high-performing educator, Gul was selected by the Department of Education to serve as a peer mentor for colleagues in her local community. As part of the School Improvement Programme, Gul attended training delivered by AKU–IED’s PDCN, which provided her with guidance on school development planning; instructional leadership; activity-based learning; multi-grade teaching; and working with parents and communities to monitor and evaluate the school’s performance.

Simply being selected to attend the training was very motivating for her. “I felt proud of being selected, knowing that I had these capabilities,” she says.

A VISION FOR LEARNING

After the training, the school community, including teachers, parents, and even government officials, came together to develop a school development plan under the guidance of SIP. This started with the creation of a school vision. The vision—“to develop a generation of positive thinkers as global citizens”—now hangs prominently on display on the wall of many classrooms.

Gul also plays the role of librarian at the school—providing books to students and arranging library periods for 15 to 20 minutes. This gives students the space to explore and discover books that pique their own interests. It has helped promote a culture of reading in the school. In 2018 alone, students checked out nearly 1,800 books from the school library.

Gul credits SIP for this surge of interest in books and reading among the students. Since SIP’s implementation, there has been a shift toward activity-based learning, with a focus on creativity and imagination.

“Before SIP,” she says, “teachers were teaching without lesson plans.” She describes their reliance on a rote style of instruction: “If the teacher was showing a picture, they would explain [exactly] what was in the picture to the students. Now they invite students to imagine what’s there, what’s happening in the picture.” This encourages students to engage more actively and ask questions of the teacher. When Gul gets questions from her students, she feels motivated.

SIP has also taught Gul more effective ways to teach her children how to read.

“I learned phonetics and how to teach with letter sounds [at the PDCN]. Before, I taught reading without using sound. And now, using the sounds, the students learn very fast.” Her eyes light up when she says this. “Once they know sounds, they read much faster and develop vocabulary.”

BECOMING A MENTOR TO OTHERS

When Gul started in her role as a mentor, one of her mentees was a brand new teacher. Gul observed some of the difficulties she faced in managing a classroom for the first time and the struggles she had in devising lessons plans.

Gul took the new teacher under her wing, helping her develop better lesson plans and inviting her to observe Gul teaching her own students. Gul noted that this coaching helped to boost the young teacher’s confidence. “Now she gives better lessons. Now she is very confident.”

The moment that Gul first realized she was making an impact happened during a classroom observation of her fellow teacher and mentee. The teacher she mentored who had previously been uncertain of how to direct her class was at the front of the classroom engaging and interacting with her students.

“I realized then that whatever I was doing was creating this. That was a proud moment for me.”

“As a mentor, I teach my colleagues how to set objectives and design activities centered around the child,” Gul says. One of her teacher-mentees now creates objects, like cut-outs of animals, to illustrate new words to young children and build their vocabulary. She found the teachers in her school “keen to learn” and accepting of her guidance.

A SHIFT TOWARDS EMPOWERMENT

The SIP approach embodies a belief in the capacity of teachers to transform themselves, no matter what system they belong to. This goes against the commonly held belief in the region that government teachers are unskilled and not motivated to learn new teaching styles. In fact, SIP is proving that once teachers understand where to direct their energies and feel supported by their community, a shift can happen. In empowering teachers like Gul, SIP creates a school environment that harnesses the strengths of the local community, builds educators’ capacity, and enriches the lives of students and families alike.

One mother speaks of Gul’s influence on her personally. Gul encouraged the young mother to take books out of the new school library. Now, with support from Gul, the mother focused on her child and encouraged her to read stories again and again.

Gul recalls one book that she suggested the mother and child check out from the library. The child returned the next day, she says, and had the book memorized. “Because my mother helped me focus,” the child in grade 2 said, “I’ve read all the story and now I know it by heart.”

Even more important than learning stories by heart, Gul knows, is understanding their meaning. Gul and other teachers continue to nurture this young girl's new love of reading and the discovery of knowledge. Through child-centred teaching that engages and inspires, they are creating powerful learning experiences that open for her a brighter future.

Gul Bano is a teacher at the Government Middle School in Barkolti in the Silgan Valley of northern Pakistan.