Partnering with India! It makes sense.

Like so many expatriates, I cross my fingers whenever a new delegation goes to India (or vice Versa) to talk about resolving issues that are 60 plus years old. When it looks like things might change for good something always happen either by design or coincidence (take your pick). A large section of the population in Pakistan is frankly sick of it. Right from the creation of Pakistan, the ruling elite consisting of Jagirdars/Waderas/Pirs AKA politicians never let the education system flourish. The message of the “SECULAR” founder of the country was deliberately buried under a misguided nationalist narrative made up of part facts, part fiction and some outright lies.

It is now time for the sanity to prevail. The need of the hour is to reset the button on our relationship with India (Its common sense 101). Enough of the scare tactics. Media needs to take a lead by aggressively questioning the real motives (and in some cases loyalties) of all those who favor the status co. Let's call it quits on the failed experiment of pursuing misguided policies (for the past 60 years) that have made the country less safe, more isolated and closer to disintegration. Let's start with a new experiment where we can test new sets of policies that ONLY focus on building partnerships across several sectors including education, science & technology, arts, tourism etc with India. Let's try them for the next 20 years and see how that works out. If China can find a way to conduct billions of dollars of business in spite of their disputes, so can we.

Like Pakistan, India has its fair share of problems relating to corruption, but at the same time, there has been a serious effort to built high quality educational institutions across the country which has started to really pay off especially for the underprivileged and lower middle class families. I am willing to bet, if we remove any preconditions, freeze the contentious issues for 10 years and just focus on building various partnerships all these issues will disappear before our eyes. If people are able to move more freely across the border than the whole argument of mine vs yours will not even matter anymore. Both Pakistan and India has a lot to offer each other if we could just focus on building alliances and partnerships rather than missiles and nuclear bombs.

There is no dearth of talent in Pakistan and I can personally vouch for that. The young generation is ready to take their destiny in their own hands. All they need is an environment to succeed, and an opportunity to learn and show their talents. They just need the government to do their job and take their hands of them - literally. If the government really want to play Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, please look for all the ill-gotten wealth that has been accumulated for the past 60 years and the people will cheer and support them all the way to the court house and beyond.

Urdu at Home Website Upgraded!

In the middle of 2010, we made a promise to our members that we will start working on Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. It took us more time than we initially expected but we were able to deliver them with great success last week. Now our educator plan proudly consists of Foundational Stage, Key Stage 1,
Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4.

We have completely redesigned our application engine and now all our printable resources are presented by topics. There are plenty of Urdu resources for all exam boards.  The redesigned “Lesson Center” has over 1000 ready to print worksheets spread over different Key stages. The navigation has
become very easy and downloading is extremely fast. The supplemental section has a large number of research related worksheets that will appeal to some of  the more advanced students in the class.

Our interactive/animated voice enabled application “E-Shagird” now has even more resources including Games, Dialogues, Stories, Quizzes, Vocabulary, Grammar, Reading, Listening etc. The students will be completely engaged during the class and the Urdu teachers can finally take a sigh of relief.  

There are some websites that offer  resources consisting of Power Point presentations and You Tube videos. I am sure they do have some value but what we offer is a complete system of teaching that is specially designed for Urdu teachers and students to build Urdu literacy. In addition to the Topics suggested by the leading exam board, we cover a lot of additional teaching material that is critical for developing Urdu literacy skills.

In the end, my sincere advise to all Urdu teachers; please do the necessary research and ask plenty of
questions before spending money on resources.

Respects,

Syed Abbas