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Don't do your child's homework | Look at education
Don't do your child's homework
Aug 23, 2008: A proper home atmosphere for doing homework is important for learning and
keeping up in school.
The Nemours Foundation offers these
suggestions:
* Create an area at home just for homework. It should be
well-lit, with all of the supplies that your child needs.
* Set aside a
certain time every day - such as before a snack or after dinner - to study and
do homework.
* Minimise distractions during homework time, including
music, television and phone calls.
* Don't do your child's homework. The
child won't learn from mistakes if they're yours. But offer help when needed.
Praise your child for doing well and trying hard.
* Be involved in your
child's schoolwork, and set a good example by reading and working at home, too. The News
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Yet another look at education
IT is encouraging that the importance of updating and revising the National Education
Policy 1998-2010 (NEP) is understood by the government. It is also a welcome
measure that this is being undertaken on a war-footing , as we are given to
understand. As the government is in the process of reviewing the NEP, it would
do well to recall that the Musharraf regime had also constituted a policy review
team in September 2005, with the mandate to undertake the revision exercise. The
review team issued a White Paper in December 2006 which evidently did not win
the approval of the education ministry bosses at the time. Hence the report was
shelved. The present government has announced that the revised policy it is
preparing will be known as the NEP-2008 and will be announced before the end of
the year after it receives input from all four provinces. The need for revision
can be attributed to the shortcomings of the education sector that the last
policy prepared by Nawaz Sharif's government failed to rectify. The latest
revision exercise notwithstanding, skepticism abounds. The entire exercise
implores some questions owing to the checkered history of such undertakings in
the past. They have generally failed to produce results. As a result such
exercises have proved to be futile. Where does the fault lie? Does it lie in the
recommendations which were put forward or in the implementation process? More
often than not the problem has been with the lack of political will to implement
the recommendations.
The last review addressed some vital aspects of the
education sector such as the pillars of quality including the curriculum - and
its relevance - textbooks, assessment, teachers training and learning
environment; gender equity; accessibility; education financing; political
interference and corruption; and parallel systems
in education. But the
fact that these recommendations were shelved and never considered seriously
points to the underlying factor of failure of implementation. Reviewing policies
is a protracted process which requires financial resources and experts. It is a
time-consuming job which should only be undertaken if it can improve ongoing
reforms. Failure to get the desired results may call for a revision of the
recommendations but that should not be such a challenge. The government should
consider taking up the White Paper on education which is still relevant to our
conditions. It was prepared less than two years ago. It offers a major
advantage. The implementation process can be started right away without
delay. Dawn
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Master's programme in climatology soon by Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD)
Karachi: The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has been in
consultation with public sector universities to launch a separate Master's
programme in climatology.
The PMD is already running an institute in
Karachi to train meteorologists, and has been providing active assistance to the
Islamabad-based COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, which offers a
unique master's degree in meteorology. The PMD's Institute of Meteorology and
Geophysics at the Regional Meteorological Centre, Karachi is affiliated with the
University of Karachi (KU), and offers a one-year postgraduate diploma in
meteorology. Recently, budding meteorologists from different South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries (except India)
successfully attended the diploma course.
The National University of
Sciences and Technology (NUST) in Rawalpindi, and the University of the Punjab
in Lahore, are two seats of higher education, which have been engaged in
consultation with the PMD for launching the new course in climatology. The News
spoke to academics associated with meteorology. Most are unsure about the PMD's
new proposal. According to them, students who are postgraduates in geology,
geography, mathematics, physics, and other sciences are considered fully
qualified. Dr Tariq Masood Ali Khan is a professor of atmospheric physics at the
Institute of Environmental Studies at KU and has a PhD in meteorology from the
University of Philippines. He feels that a separate master's programme in
meteorology will only produce postgraduates who have limited career options,
owing to the specialised nature of their education. He said that the PMD has
sufficient arrangements for specialised courses and training.
Dr Jamil
Kazmi, Chairman of the geography department at the KU, added that relevant
science departments of public sector universities, including his own, already
collaborate with the PMD. Kazmi, who is also a member of the Meteorological
Surveillance Board, sees no defect in the training offered by the meteorological
department. However, Dr Syed Iqbal Mohsin, former geology professor and Dean of
the Science faculty at KU, and later vice-chancellor of the Federal Urdu
University, thinks differently. "Universities in India have been offering
specialised courses in meteorological sciences. There is no comparison with
Pakistan."
Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, Director General Meteorological
Services Pakistan, conceded that meteorology in Pakistan has been lagging behind
the rest of the world in terms of the availability of qualified human resources.
"We have pointed out our shortcomings to the federal government. They agreed to
fund training and higher education here and abroad for budding meteorologists."
he said. According to him, the government is spending Rs200 million to produce
50 qualified meteorologists over the next five years. Out of these 20 to 25 will
be send abroad for a PhD in meteorology. Presently, seven weathermen associated
with the PMD are undertaking PhDs in meteorology in the United Kingdom, China,
Canada, and Thailand. They will be available for the Meteorological Department
within two years.
Chaudhry said that at present, the Meteorology
Department avails the services of 15 MS qualified weather experts. At least four
meteorologists in the department have a master's level education in
hydrometeorology, and seven officials/experts in seismology. Chaudhry himself is
one of the two PhD-qualified meteorologists in the department. He acknowledged
that the Meteorological Department's negotiations plans for launching
specialised postgraduate courses in meteorological sciences had not generated
the desired response, but is hopeful that this will change. Tauseef Alam,
Director of the Regional Meteorological Centre in Karachi, said that there
should be openings in the country for employing meteorologists in the fields of
media, aviation, defence, agriculture, and related sectors.
Muhammad
Tanveer, who recently spent a year at the meteorology department at the COMSATS
Institute as assistant professor/research coordinator, said that there is no
harm if universities launch programmes in meteorological sciences. He argued
that several sectors of the country, including economy, trade and business,
agriculture, and defence, are dependant upon the Meteorological Department in
some way. "Had German advancing forces in the Second World War had access to
timely and accurate forecasts, they would not have faced the ignominious defeat
in Russia after heavy snowfall," he said. Tanveer pointed out that the number of
students enrolling in the MS programme at the COMSATS Institute is declining. He
stressed the need to create awareness for the requirements of meteorology
experts, who provide weather predictions for the well-being of various sectors
of national and economic importance. The News
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