Are your students well prepared to sit in PEC Exams?

According to the new policy of Punjab Education Foundation,the students of class 5,8,9 and 10 will not appear in regular QAT. Instead they will appear in PEC and Board exams. PEF will consider the results of PEC and Boards.Is this policy favorable for PEF Partner schools or not? The time will give the answer to this question. Now when the PEC exams are drawing near,the question arises:Are the students of PEF partner schools well prepared to sit in the PEC Exams?
       Someone may think," what is this question for? What do you want to say? Our teachers have worked pretty hard through out the year and we hope to get good results." You will get the logic behind this question if you put the following questions to your teachers involved in PEC classes(5th&8th):

1. What is the paper pattern according to the latest PEC Model Paper?
2. How many sections are there in the PEC Model Paper?
3. What type of questions will be constructed in the paper?
4. How many MCQ's are there in the Objective part?
5. Are these MCQ's from the textbook lessons or exercises? If not then where these questions have been constructed from?
6. What type of questions have been constructed in subjective part of the paper?
7. Five MCQ's in the Model paper of 5th class English are based on an unseen stanza.Has this practice been carried out in your school?
8. The first question of subjective part in  Model paper of English (5th) is about describing a picture in sentences.Is this practice carried out in your classes?
9. When you study the objective part of English and Urdu Model papers,it seems all the questions are out of syllabus.They are not from textbook exercises.Where these questions have been constructed from?
10. Are your teachers familiar to Rubrics published by PUNJAB EXAMINATION COMMISSION?

If you get the answers to these questions satisfactorily,you need not worry,your students will carry the day in the PEC exams. If you don't get the answers,it is an alarming situation which requires to pay attention as the exams are not very far.

NOTE:In the next post,I will try to describe the complete pattern of PEC Model Papers.Please subscribe the page and comment if you find the post helpful.

Basics for a PEF Partner School (III)

QAT Model Papers...Analysis and Description of Pattern

Everyone who is associated with a PEF partner school ,either as a teacher or as a student knows well about QAT. It is the test which should be passed essentially otherwise the funding of the the school is stopped.So, we can say, to pass QAT is in fact the matter of survival for a PEF partner school.

Academic Development Unit (ADU) releases model papers of all subjests (English,Urdu,Maths,General knowledge or General Science) once a year just before the conduction of QAT. These models papers serve as a guideline for the students as well as for the teachers and keep them on the track while preparing for QAT. For a PEF partner school teacher it is essential to study and analyse the model paper of related subject carefully so that he/she could help the students in right direction to make them able to get through QAT.

Pattern of QAT Model Papers 

From class 2 to class 7, Qat is conducted only in four subjects:

1. English: 
2. Urdu
3. Maths
4. General Knowledge or General Science

Pattern of English Model Papers

English model papers(from class 3 to 8) consist of two sections. The first section carries 13 marks having 13 MCQ's. Out of these 13 MCQ's, 10 MCQ's are conceptual grammar based and 3 MCQ's are constructed on the base of comprehension of a given paragraph.The paragraph may be from the Texbook lessons or out of syllabus.

 The second section of English model papers carries 12 marks and have many type of descriptive and creative writing questions including Comprehension,Making sentences, summary writing,fill in the blanks,story writing,paragraph writing,letter writing,dialogue writing etc. This section varies in style in different classes.The model papers can be downloaded from the PEF website.Download link is given below:
Download Qat model papers

Pattern of Urdu Model Papers

 The pattern of Urdu model paper is slightly different from English.it also consists of  two sections.The first section carries 13 marks having 13 MCQ's.Out of these 13 MCQ's,9 MCQ's are from grammar,text of lessons and exercises while 4 MCQ's are based on the comprehension of a given paragraph.The paragraph is mostly from the lessons of the textbook.The second section carries 12 marks having descriptive and creative writing questions like paragraph writing,application writing,letter writing or story writing etc.The topics of paragraphs,letters or stories are give in the supplementary syllabus.

Pattern of Maths and Science Model Papers

The Maths and Science modal papers are similar in structure.They consist of two sections.The first section carries 13 marks having 13 MCQ's.The MCQs are constructed from within the text as well as from the exercises.The MCQ's are mostly SLO's based so the teachers should perform SLO's based teaching in the classrooms.
 The second section carries 12 marks having 6 short questions.The questions may be constructed from within the text as well as from the exercises.The short questions are also mostly SLO's based.

A PEF partner School teacher should download model papers immediately after these are uploade by ADU and workout accordingly.

Basics for a PEF partner school Teacher (Part II)...SUPPLEMENTARY SYLLABUS

What is a supplementary Syllabus?

In previous post, we discussed about CONTENT LIST and the way PEF partner school teachers should work with it.In this post we will emphasize on The SUPPLEMENTARY SYLLABUS.

    Punjab Education Foundation releases The Supplementary syllabus once a year just before the conduction of QAT.It is a short version of Content List.Mostly the teachers mistake the supplementary syllabus as the content list.The supplementary syllabus accurately tells us about the portion of content list which will exactly be the part of QAT exam.In case of the supplementary Syllabus,following points should be kept in mind:

   1. If the school is in FAS program,the supplementary syllabus will comprise of 65% of total syllabus.

   2. If the school is affiliated with EVS,NSP or PSSP program,the supplementary syllabus will comprise of 75% of total syllabus.

Basics for a PEF partner school Teacher

        Mentoring and Training of Teaching Staff

In previous post, we were discussing about the training and grooming of the available teaching staff.Your school is in an area where the qualified and experienced staff is not available,you have to rely on the staff available in the locality or neighborhood.In this case,if you want to get more from this teaching staff,you will have to train and groom them.You will have to help them improve their skills through training,coaching and motivation.

Besides having general teaching skills and competencies,a PEF partner school teacher should have some extra information and competencies to accomplish the task he/she is doing.Following are some basics without which a teacher can't fulfill the requirements of a PEF PARTNER SCHOOL:

1. CONTENT LIST
2. SUPPLEMENTARY SYLLABUS
3. MODEL PAPERS
4. PAST PAPERS

 

http://pef.edu.pk.pefsis.edu.pk/pdf/downloads/Content-List/Content-List-AC-2017-18.pdf

WORKING WITH CONTENT LIST

The first pillar which the academics and evaluation system of a PEF partner school system based on is CONTENT LIST. PUNJAB EDUCATION FOUNDATION publishes content List once a year at the beginning of educational year.The download link of the latest content list is given above.Mostly the teachers mistakenly take SUPPLEMENTARY SYLLABUS as content list.It comprises of about 333 pages and contains each and every content (topic) of TEXTBOOKS.

What should a PEF partner school teacher do with the Content List?

Before starting a new educational year,almost 10 days before the first day of school,the teachers should work on the content list as mentioned below:

1. The teachers should thoroughly study the contents of relevant subject to see:

a) How it is different from the previous one i.e. the teachers should compare the new content list with the older one to point out the changes.In this way they will be able to concentrate on the new arrivals.

b) The teachers should study the contents carefully to make their concepts crystal  clear.During my visits for training sessions all over the Punjab it was revealed that mostly the teachers are teaching in the classroom with poor concepts.As a result they are not delivering in the classrooms what they should do.So,when the teachers will study each content to make their concepts clearer,their teaching will be more purposeful and they will be able to deliver more in the classroom.

   2.After reading all the contents and making their concepts clear,the teachers should start reading the contents again keeping in view,how will they teach these contents in the classroom.In other words,now they will do lesson planning.This is a very important phase and needs intensive supervision by the principals or head teachers.Lesson planning is a comprehensive topic which will be discussed in the next post.

The Next Posts:

1. Lesson Planning 
2. Working with Supplementary syllabus
3. Working with QAT Model papers

QAT Result,100%........What should a school owner/Principal do?

Punjab education Foundation is playing a key role in promoting educational standard and  literacy rate in Punjab,the major and the most populated province of Pakistan.It promotes quality education through public-private partnership.It provides technical and financial support to the schools of private sector.This institution is really a blessing for the underprivileged children.  PEF is playing its role as excellent as possible. On the other end the partner private schools should also play their role excellently. PEF conducts QAT Exams once a year.Now a days these exams are in progress in various districts of Punjab.If a partner school fails in QAT exam,its payment is not released and the system collapses. The owners of PEF patrner schools try their best to adopt every possible way to get through QAT. As a school owner or principal,if they keep the following points in practice,they will never have to suffer the failure:

Appointment of Teaching Staff

While appointing the teaching staff,you should keep in mind the milestone you have to reach i.e. QAT. The best managerial skill is to appoint the right person for the right job.During my visits in various districts of Punjab,I observed that mostly the teachers in PEF partner schools are not fit for the job they are doing.While appointing a teacher,kindly keep these points in view:
i) If the teacher has full command over the subject matter?
ii) If he/she has core competencies for teachers?
iii) Has he/she full command over Grammar and Composition if he/she is a language teacher?
iv) Does he/she know about QAT pattern and Structure?
v)If he/she has awareness about SLO's based teaching?
vi) If he/she knows about Standars,Benchmarks and SLO's of our National Curriculum?
vii) Can he/she tell the name of any teaching method other than lecture method?
viii)Does he/she know about Lesson Planning?
ix ) Does he/she know about the tools and evaluation methods being used in most of our exams?
x )Does he/she know about the components of our curriculum?

If the answer to the questions given above are satisfactory, then don,t let him/her go.In future he/she may prove an asset for your institution.If he/she fails to provide the the answers , never make a mistake to appoint that person as a teacher as he/she will never help you to achieve your goal.   

'What should I do if if I don't find the kind of teachers you recommend?'

The question will definitely arise as I know  the condition of areas where most of the PEF partner schools are located.The answer is simple.Make the available staff skillful  and competent. In the next Post we will discuss about ways that are helpful in grooming the available teaching staff.