ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has launched a capacity-building training programme for teachers at colleges in Punjab.

The programme was for the faculty of nine divisions of the province in collaboration with the Higher Education Department, Punjab under the Higher Education Development in Pakistan (HEDP) project, said a news release on Thursday.

A two-day training was organised by the HEDP project team of HEC at the University of Education, Lahore for the faculty of 60 affiliated colleges of the Lahore district.

The first batch comprising 109 participants, including over 60% women, was trained in the capacity-building workshop.

The training comprised six modules:

A — Transition to Semester System

B— Academic Advisement & Career Progression

C — Use of Technology in Education

D — Learning Assessment & Feedback

E — Curriculum & Course Development

F — Teaching Methodology: Andragogy and Pedagogy.

The activity is led by HEDP Programme Specialist Asad Khan and the Post-Secondary Education Reform Unit (PERU) team, a component of the project responsible for the execution and rollout of the Undergraduate Education Policy (UEP), in close coordination with the Higher Education Departments (HEDs).

The HEDP project is focused on supporting the tertiary education system composed of affiliated colleges in Pakistan and several initiatives of the project including IT support, governance, capacity building and financial autonomy are aimed at supporting these institutions.

The training is an outcome of advocacy meetings held earlier with HED Punjab in which they have nominated 1,600 faculty members from 800 affiliated colleges, whose capacity will be enhanced in a phased approach.

The training was followed by an online post-test and feedback survey. The pre and post-tests indicate that substantial value was added to the participant’s knowledge about UEP during the training.

HED Punjab Deputy Secretary Nadeem Asghar attended the opening as well as closing (certificate distribution) ceremonies. He stressed effective coordination between federal and provincial bodies and the importance of such training for faculty development, especially in the affiliated colleges.