Quetta: Several education managers and politicians held storytelling sessions at government schools in Quetta with primary students this past week, as a follow-up to the storytelling workshops held in recent weeks for politicians, local government representatives and education managers, as a part of the School Reading Program 2016 of Children’s Literature Festival and Alif Ailaan.
National Party MPA Yasmeen Lehri was the first politician in Quetta to visit a government school for a storytelling session, followed by Director Schools Muhammad Anwar Shah, District Education Officer Hanif Bangulzai, Additional District Education Officers Gul Bashra, Rashida Niaz and Naila Naz. The students enjoyed all storytelling sessions as the politicians and education managers acted as storytellers and did imitations of the characters in the stories and interacted with children in healthy discussions around the stories’ themes.
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After her school visit to Girls Government Killi Ismail School, MPA Yasmeen Lehri said, “When local leaders will visit schools for activities such as this, not only will it inspire the children to read and learn more, but it will also benefit us in realizing what issues teachers and students face, and what can be done to boost learning levels of students.”
According to Annual Status of Education Report 2015, on a national level, 49% of Class 5 students could not read sentences in English, 50% could not do simple 2-digit division, and 55% could not read stories in Urdu, all meant for Class 2. While a provincial comparison of learning levels showed that Balochistan ranked the lowest in category of ‘Class 5 students who can read a story in Urdu’ and second-lowest in ‘Class 5 students who can read sentences in English’ and ‘Class 5 students who can do two-digit math.’
The School Reading Program had been launched jointly by Children’s Literature Festival and Alif Ailaan to ensure that poor learning outcomes and quality of education begin to occupy increased space in the education discourse, by engaging politicians, local government officials and education managers with children studying in primary government schools through the art of storytelling.
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