AKU-IED's Conference on Quality in Education

Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED) held an International Conference on ‘Quality in Education: Teaching and Leadership in Challenging Times’ in February. The main objectives of the conference were to provide a forum for dissemination of educational research on quality in teaching, leadership, teacher education and related issues; enable discussion on issues of quality with reference to the conference themes; and promote networking and enable contact among the various stakeholders engaged in educational research. The conference themes were:

• Quality in teacher education;
• Leadership for quality teaching;
• Globalisation and teaching and learning.

In-depth discussions by national and international scholars produced valuable outcomes.

Dr Hamida Khuhro, Minister for Education and Literacy, Government of Sindh, was the chief guest at the opening ceremony. Lauding AKU-IED's work, Dr Khuhro said that since its inception, the Institute has been engaged in developing and delivering quality programmes in education. She highlighted the significance of the series of policy dialogues conducted by AKU-IED during the past three years on key issues in education with government and other agencies.

Earlier in his welcome address, Founding President Shamsh Kassim-Lakha, pointed out that in many low-income countries, teachers do not meet even the minimum required standards for their profession. He recounted the factors that encouraged AKU to concentrate on education of teachers, school heads and policymakers.

A large number of educationists from Pakistan, India, East Africa, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Malaysia, Poland, UK, US and Canada participated in the conference. Three days of deliberations and discussions by national and international researchers, academics and educationists led to several outcomes. Some of these included:

• Identification of areas and issues, such as language and culture in education, quality in higher education and special education, etc, for research and dissemination at future conferences;

• Launch of Pakistan Association of Research in Education (PARE ) .

More information on AKU-IED at http://www.aku.edu/ied/