CPBEP has facilitated a brainstorming session with senior staff members of CW to deliberate the concept paper on National Curriculum Framework. CPBEP consultant facilitated the session; content and development process of NCF in various countries have been discussed at length among all the participants.  The content and development have been decided and it is anticipated that NCF will work as a guiding tool to streamline Teacher Education, and will help to ensure horizontal and vertical alignment in the curriculum. The workshop identified the common means by which NCF is developed, including structured approach based on contextual studies and a more informal approach based on committee work. It is elucidated that NCF serves both as guiding principles and as a measure for Quality Assurance.

Educational Planning Working Group (EPWG) Multan and Lodhran District, in collaboration with Canada Pakistan Basic Education Project (CPBEP), took an initiative to conduct second Annual Planning Forum (APF) on March 10-11, 2010, in Multan. The forum is an essential component of the district education planning process. This event brings together education managers and selected head teachers to deliberate on the choices for development of elementary education in the district. The second APF proved to be an institutionalisation of the initiative which started last year with an aim to contribute to the educational planning at district level on the basis of grass-root problems and issues. 12 policy papers were presented in this two day event with a set of recommendations for each presented theme; these recommendations will eventually feed into District Education Annual Plan (DEAP) of respective districts. Position Papers were developed by district education managers, head teachers of schools and faculty members of UE-Multan and GCETs (Nawan Shehr, Bosan Road and Rangeelpur). The participation of Mr. Nadeem ur Rehman, Additional Secretary Schools; Mr. Syed Ai Murtaza Zaidi, DCO Multan; Mr. Ghulam Farid, DCO Lodhran; Mr. Abdul Waheed, MPA; and Mr. Abdul Rasheed, DPI, showed the commitment at higher level to bring change by providing quality education at district and provincial level. Themes covered in policy papers:

• Resource Mobilization for School Roads
• Mentoring of teachers as an essential component of administrative responsibility
• The potential of filling up missing facilities through district level planning and budgeting
• Essentiality of computer labs for comprehensive elementary education
• Minimum Sports Facility Standards
• Increasing the responsiveness of teacher training to teacher needs
• Affordable measures for high value improvement in school environment
• From Book bank to libraries: Reading rooms in primary and elementary schools
• Comparative Analysis of Public Private Sector
• Community and parental awareness
• Importance of DEAP planning process
• Increasing enrolment and arresting drop out rate through physical and quality inputs
• Upgradation of schools: Needs and strategies

CPBEP supported development of DEPER which offers a composite picture of the practices, trends, and lacunae of the system for easy appreciation of the shortcomings and formulation of appropriate action plans. DEPER toolkit takes into both qualitative and quantitative performance evaluation against the predefined indicators such as outreach of service delivery, quality, equity, learning outcomes, governance, administration and budgetary spending. The document was validated in a one day consultative workshop of the key stakeholders of district level basic education service delivery, arranged by the Project.

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