Impact of Institutional Quality on Trade Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in Pakistan

The trade economy is dependent upon the institutional quality of the country. It affects the ease of doing business in the economy. It is plausible to think that, how institutional quality can affect the trading performance of Pakistan. Small & medium enterprises (SMEs) are playing the role of the backbone of the trade sector in Pakistan. Contribution SMEs can be significantly improved, by improving the supporting macroeconomic indicators. This paper studies the short-run and the long-run association between SME trade growth and cost of production, relative prices, and Institutional quality in Pakistan. It also examines the Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, between SME trade growth and institutional quality in Pakistan. This study utilizes secondary data, which is taken from multiple secondary sources, including the SMEDA, Pakistan Economic Survey, and world development indicators. The biannual data is assembled up for 38 observations from (2000 to 2019). This study uses Auto Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) bound testing method to examine the short run and long run connections between SMEs’ trade growth and macro-economic variables, like; relative prices, Cost of production. Gross Domestic Product, exchange rate, and institutional quality. These variables are selected from the available literature. The study finds that the short-run response of SMEs trade is not significant, but it significantly responds to macro-economic indicators in long run. The institutional quality has a non-linear relationship with SMEs trade growth. This indicates that the pollution heaven hypothesis holds valid even for the case of institutional quality and SMEs trading performance. The study focuses on the optimality of institutional quality for the optimal performance level of SMEs in Pakistan.

Exploring the Contribution of Mentoring in Improving Teaching and Learning

Producing highly skilled, competent teachers in developing countries, such as Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan, requires an on-going teacher education, training and support. A number of research studies indicate that mentoring provides a highly useful service for teachers in their continuing education. As such, mentoring has been widely accepted as a process to support beginning teachers' professional development. However, little is known in developing countries about what mentoring is, and to what extent it brings improvement in teaching and learning. Therefore, in this particular case study was designed to explore the contribution of mentoring in facilitating the beginning teachers' teaching practice and the improvement that this can bring in the students' learning outcomes, in a developing country's context. The study is largely based on interview data provided by a mentor and two mentee teachers who were the participants of this study. During the study, the mentee teachers disclosed the factors, that they perceived to be the most influential in affecting their progress as teachers. In line with many research studies, this particular research confirms that the attitude and skills of a mentor are a critical factor in raising the confidence and self-esteem of beginning teachers. The findings of the study indicate that mentoring creates a model for extending the learning process and, thus, it evolves to serve a pivotal function for nurturing the beginning teachers' professional development, in their initial years of experience in the classroom. The study pays particular attention to the impact of the mentoring process on improving the students' learning, and suggests a number of strategies for further improving the students' learning outcomes. Based on the results of the research findings, the study confirms that improvement in beginning teachers' teaching practice produces substantial improvement in students' learning outcomes. In addition, some recommendations and implications have been drawn from the study, so as to contribute to the betterment of the mentoring process in Pakistani schools and also in schools in Kyrgyzstan.