Educational news about Personality development, career guidance, Leadership Skills and more in Edubilla.com ...

The International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) to be launched by Pakistan Education Centre (PEC) next year will be affordable to thousands of aspirant expatriate students, the Principal has said.

In an interview with The Peninsula yesterday, PEC Principal Nargis Raza Otho disclosed that the Ministry of Education and Higher Education has granted permission to PEC to offer evening classes from grades 1 to 12 for people of all age groups.

“PEC has been providing education at lower costs compared to other institutions, particularly other Pakistani schools being run privately,” Raza said, adding PEC would inaugurate IGCSE with affordable fee structure. 

The management was waiting for the completion of a building anticipating that it would be completely constructed by September 2018. “The building will have 18 rooms, each  with the capacity for 30 students,” she said. “Sa’eed Mathkar Al Hajri, CEO, Jassim and Hamad Bin Jassim Foundation, has promised a state-of-the-art IT laboratory in the new facility,” she said, thanking HBJ Foundation. The Foundation recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Pakistani Embassy to build the facility. 

The over QR7m facility, once complete, will offer education in International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE), parallel to the existing curriculum, at affordable fees. 

Raza said PEC is already teaching British curriculum. “But we teach this curriculum from grade 1 to 8. From grade 9, students are taught as per Federal Board, Pakistan, and receive Pakistani secondary school certificate (SSC),” she said, expressing hope that the launch of IGCSE would make it easy for children to select either option. “It will be more feasible to make an astute choice between IGCSE and Federal Board,” she added.

For the purpose, the Principal said, new trained staff would be hired. “They will be guided by a director to enable them to compete with other international schools. Only the bright students from grade 8 will be selected for IGCSE,” she said. Raza said for the first time the ministry had allowed PEC to start evening classes for grades 1 to 12. “These classes have no age limit and are especially designed for ladies who can’t come in the morning,” she said, adding two Qatari girls had also got enrolled for evening classes.

For the morning classes, PEC is legally obliged to follow the age limit set by the ministry. “Therefore, the parallel classes in the evening have made it easy for all adults to get education,” she said. Raza expressed pride that there are children of 25 nationalities in PEC. “We welcome every nationality. This international stream will also be open to everyone.” She said the philosophy of corporate social responsibility is deeply rooted in the philosophy of school education. “When, in academic context, we say that we mean business; we in fact emphasise on the idea of CSR of schools.

“PEC is a community school and is more deeply connected with community, especially of overseas Pakistanis. Here, the community has but partial understanding of such role of school but PEC is infusing the idea of CSR in them gradually,” Raza added.