The establishment of the new PDC in Northern Pakistan will respond to the urgent and ongoing need for competent, effective teachers, especially female teachers, at primary and secondary school levels - in both the government and private sectors. It will create indigenous human resources and an institutional structure capable of supporting effective schools and educational systems in the North. The core function of the PDC would be professional development of teachers who are already in service. Key supporting functions will include management training for school heads and middle and senior educational managers, curriculum development and research. A satellite PDC will be developed in Chitral.
Planning is underway to establish PDCs in East Africa and Central Asia.
They are designed to enhance the pedagogical content knowledge of the participants and to make them specialists in their subject areas, leading to their further professional and academic development. Graduates, in concert with Professional Development Teachers and head teachers, improve the quality of education in their home schools. Programmes are variants on full time programmes. A similar programme had initially been successfully implemented in Nairobi. Visiting Teacher Programmes will be offered in Bangladesh in late 1999 while programmes based in Central Asia are planned for the future.