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.

A Case Study: Formative Classroom Assessment Practices of Two Lower Secondary Teachers of Mathematics in an English Medium Private School of Karachi

This small-scale case study attempts to investigate the formative assessment practices of two lower secondary mathematics teachers of two private English-medium secondary schools of Karachi, Pakistan. It paves the path to explore the different ways of giving feedback to students and asking oral questions from them in the classroom. The nature of the study leads the researcher towards using the qualitative paradigm, with the case study approach at the heart of the study. The trustworthiness of the data was ensured through designing different tools for investigation: interview, observation, and the use of complementary documentary evidence. The dominant form of assessment in Pakistan is highly summative and is focused on promoting students to the next classes. However, teachers in this study were found to be using some aspects of formative assessment. In this connection, the main findings that emerged from classroom observations, interviews, and document analyses of primary and secondary research participants were analyzed and discussed. In particular, the findings reiterate the teachers' understanding of formative assessment, along with ways of feedback from the teacher to the students. Furthermore, the teachers' classroom observations exemplified that they give oral feedback to explain how to get to the appropriate solution of mathematical problems. Moreover, the nature of feedback was corrective, but errors were not explained. Some hindering and facilitating factors regarding sustaining formative assessment at the classroom level emerged during the teachers' interviews. Although teachers faced several challenges, there is still hope for sustaining formative assessment in classrooms, because it is given utmost priority in the National Education Policy (2007).