Parliamentary System and Framing of the 1973 Constitution: Contest between Government and Opposition inside the National Assembly

It is generally believed that the Constitution of 1973 was passed unanimously by the parliament of Pakistan and was equally acceptable for all the federating units. While studying the processes of the approval of the said constitution inside the assembly, it becomes evident that the reality was quite different. There exists an argument that most of the Opposition members were not allowed to join the parliament’s session while the final approval of the constitution was processed. The present paper is an effort to analyse the developments that took place inside the National Assembly to pass this document which was to serve as the fundamental document of the state system in forthcoming years. In other words, the present article analyses the course of action through which the Constitution was framed. This is an analytical study primarily based on the National Assembly debates supported by the secondary sources, biographies, and autobiographies of the contemporary politicians to understand how far the amendments suggested by the then opposition were accommodated by the ruling party. Furthermore, this paper analyses the reasons for which each government has to amend the basic structure of the constitution to make it more practical and acceptable for its units. For instance the Eighteenth Amendment removed the concurrent list of the constitution but now the following governments are facing issues to implement the Amendment in detail.

Ahmed Khan

An Evaluative Study of the Impact of Trained Elementary School Teachers on the Classroom The study aimed to evaluate the teacher training program at elementary level in AJK so as to have quality education through the improvement in the quality of teacher training, classroom teaching and ultimately by up grading the student’s achievement level. The main objectives of the study were 1) To evaluate the impact of trained elementary school teachers on classroom practices and students achievements 2) To compare the impact of trained elementary school teachers on classroom practices and students achievements in different strata 3) To suggest some recommendations to educational administrators, supervisors and teacher trainers to coordinate and upgrade the programs of teacher training and instructions to enhance the students achievements and quality of educations. Total respondents were 605 including students of grade 8th through other respondents to Directors of education. The tools of study were composed of questionnaires, interview schedules, classroom observation schedule and an achievement test of science grade 8th. Analysis of the data collected, through different tools, was made, means and percentages were calculated out which showed that generally there was no application and implementation of training in classroom environment and resultant achievements of the students remained very low ranging from 42.24 % to 48.57 % falling in grade “D” (Fair). Overall performance level of teachers regarding impact on classroom practices and students achievements was very low. This least or no impact of trained teachers on classroom practices and students achievements was due to the lack of well-planned and organized teacher training, monitoring, supervision and follow up mechanism for trained teachers. To address this poor prevailing situation in the areas of teacher training and classroom practices of trained teacher’s recommendations are presented and a new model of teacher training has been designed for implementation in future.