Meeting of Board of Directors of Pakistan International School with Faculty
The Principal of the School, Mr. Ajmal Jamil opened the meeting. He said that in order to perform its key duties including governance, monitoring the use of financial and human resources, academic planning & evaluation, and facilities management, the Board of Directors deems it important to stay comprehensibly connected with the administration and the faculty of the school. During the Coronavirus crisis, the board has been focusing on urgent and time-bound decisions. It has been deferring non-urgent decisions/agenda items until future meetings. Yet the board, though pragmatic and proportionate in its decisions, has prioritized the provision of support to the school leaders and teaching staff where needed, allowing them to get on well with operational matters.
The purpose of the meeting was to receive updates on the progress and performance in the teaching and learning experiences during the Covid-19 crisis, solicit suggestions from the faculty to improve virtual classroom life and other aspects of governance and controls.
Dr. Shafiq-ur-Rehman, Vice Chairman, BODs / Chair Academics, said that the BOD was looking forward for quite some time for a meeting with the teaching staff to share concerns and ideas, get important information, and to give them a sense that they are an important part of the overall process. He appreciated the faculty for their devotion and commitment that they exhibited in the abrupt and successful switching from face-to-face teaching to screen-to-screen format since the start of pandemic.
According to the feedback from the teachers, the school is conducting online teaching successfully. Teachers are doing this activity very creatively. They have learnt new technologies and skills. They know and are practicing what it takes for efficient remote teaching, and are equipped with the innovative techniques to keep the students successfully engaged in their virtual classrooms. It was noted with pleasure that the school is doing efficient and effective online teaching much better than many other schools in the Kingdom and Pakistan.
The teachers took the opportunity to inform the BOD of their certain problems like heavy teaching load and low salary of new teachers etc. They requested some time off for them to refresh as they have been overwhelmed with the very demanding tasks of virtual teaching ever since the school shifted to online teaching.
The suggestions that the teachers gave include provision of more sports and other extracurricular activities in the school calendar, creation of reading space in the school for the students to improve their reading habits, reduction in the tests, quizzes and syllabus during the period of virtual teaching, allocation of a page on the School Website where teachers and students can share their literary works, replacement of subjective tests with the MCQ-based tests for more credible assessment, opening of junior science labs and small libraries for junior students to nurture their intellectual curiosity etc.
Dr. Shafiq-ur-Rehman appreciated the teachers for their active participation in the meeting. Rao Muhammad Kamran Khan, Member, BOD, also admired the faculty for their extraordinary performance in virtual teaching during the Covid-19 crisis.
Mr. Abdul Rehman, Chairman, Board of Directors, concluded the meeting appreciating Dr. Shafiq-ur-Rehman for the planning and successful conduct of the virtual meeting with the faculty.
The Chairman, BOD, further praised school administration and teachers for they quickly learned essential skill set needed for online teaching and have been carrying out virtual teaching with great success. He promised to look into the problems of the faculty and help them in all possible ways. He showed his understanding to the overwhelming pressures of the online teaching during pandemic combined with the increased teaching load and promised to consider granting them a break/time off for them to refresh and rejuvenate in the end, he advised the administration to look into all academic and administrative issues raised by the teachers and find ways to resolve them.
