Dr. Memon, Professor and Head of Programmes, AKU-IED addressing the participants.

The graduation ceremony of the first ESRA-funded Certificate in Education: Educational Leadership and Management programme for senior government officials of selected districts of Sindh and Balochistan was held at the Multipurpose Hall of AKU-IED on June 25, 2004. Twenty-nine participants received certificates.

In his opening remarks, Dr Muhammad Memon, Professor and Head of Programmes at AKU-IED, congratulated the graduates. He said the progamme was designed according to the decentralization plan of the education sector. The programme was meant to help improve current practices of government officials, he added.

He said as a notion and policy the government has delegated tasks but not delegated authority to the district and tehsil education officials. As long as decision-making was centralized, there would not be any change in the status quo, he added.

"Today, we don't have an impressive rate of literacy, enrollment of students and retention of teachers in the education sector. This is because current professional development programmes are notin line with improving teachers' practices," he added.

"Through this programme", he said, "we hope you would change the current scenario. If you start taking initiatives then it will lead to change. This programme has helped to reconceptualize your roles and responsibilities."

Dr. Memon said the participants would have to play a key role in the setting up of District Resource Centres and Tehsil Resource Centres that would provide a vision and framework for professional development of teachers and teacher educators.  "Our success lies in working with collaboration not isolation. Your efforts should be on improving students learning."

He called for adapting a participatory approach to make the decentralization plan a success. "Let us learn from our past mistakes. Let's move forward to bring a real change in our education system."

Ameer Ali Jamal, Provincial Technical Adviser of ESRA, said ESRA was working on both policy issues and training programmes. He urged the graduates to implement the AKU-IED strategies in their contexts and utilize their authority for the betterment of teachers.

Rana Hussain, Coordinator of the ESRA programme at AKU-IED, said the programme emphasized on the crucial role of school leaders and heads. "We collectively agreed that both the district leaders and heads as well as school management committees will create common strategies in order to reform schools."

She said consensus among stakeholders should be developed to create an atmosphere and culture for change that would realize the set goals and vision.

Two graduates, while sharing their reflections on the programme, said AKU-IED provided them an opportunity to develop their knowledge, skills and attitudes. They added they learnt new teaching methodologies and concepts.

The graduates said the programme made them realize how important it was to involve the community in spreading education through the community involvement concept. They vowed to implement the newly-acquired strategies in their respective districts for the professional development of school teachers.