Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and his Historical Writings (Notes)

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was interested in history and history-writing. His areas of interest were Islamic and South Asian history. In this essay, we examine certain relevant facets of this interest and its manifestation. There are a vast number of studies on the life, achievements and goals of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan [1817-1898]. His essays have been collected from his journalism in 18 volumes by Muhammad Ismail Panipati1 and his other writings, lectures and letters have also received editorial attention. A useful tool in this regard is the compilation titled Kitabiyat-i-Sir Syed made by Ziauddin Lahori.2 As this paper focuses on Sir Syed’s historical writings, we may mention here a recent doctoral thesis of Syeda Jabin Zehra on this very topic.3 As a matter of fact, any and all of Sir Syed’s writings be they on education or religion now come under the ambit of history but our narrower focus will be on those writings that deal with history as history alone though they may also admit of other classifications.

Teachers and Management Understanding and Practices of Teamwork in School

Every year educational institutes invest a lot of money on education. Various approaches and techniques are being used to enhance the quality of education in order to meet the requirements of the revolutionary developing world. Teachers' teamwork is supposed to be an effective effort towards meeting those needs, by developing teachers' knowledge and skills and by sharing their experiences with each other. A number of studies have been conducted in the western countries on teachers' teamwork. Therefore, this study was conducted in a community private English medium school in Karachi, to find out teachers and management practices and understanding of teachers teamwork. The study undertook two teaching teams, one in the primary section and another in secondary section, and one team of coordinators (academic council), which is a decision making body as well as deals with teachers and classroom teaching. The study explores how teamwork helps teachers enhance their personal and professional knowledge by providing them a collaborative environment. It also explains how the school structure and the required elements, resources, time and professional development opportunities help in this regard. Even though it is a management structure, yet is seem to be fruitful for teachers to build up their trust and relation with each other, which are supposed to provide baseline for teachers' professional growth by bringing their tacit beliefs and assumptions to the surface. It also highlights some factors influencing effective teamwork, for example, influence of the team leader/coordinator, not having clear rules to be followed, unawareness of the purpose/vision for the team and role ambiguity of the members of the academic council. The study also recommends some suggestions for improving the quality of teamwork as well as recommends further studies in this field to be explored.