QUETTA : Over 3,500 students turned up to the one-day science festival at Government Model High School in Gwadar on Saturday. The students belonged to more than 28 government and private schools of the district.
The event was organised with a vision to ignite the spark for science and discovery among students in the region, and to promote better quality of learning available in government schools.
Through their passion for science and technology the students put up over 100 science models attracting throngs of teachers, entrepreneurs, science specialists, government officials and politicians to the event.
Interactive displays and live experiments, some of which involved robotics, hydraulics, earthquake detectors, web and app development and environment-based projects were conducted by the students and four science organisations from across Pakistan including Ejaad Tech, Stemmers, Pakistan Science Club and Sabaq.
Two students made a hydraulic bridge for a currently-proposed expressway in Gwadar to allow fishing boats to pass underneath it.
Similarly, many students chose the subject of local issues and problems faced by their communities in the district to create their science models – while some of the students polished their skills and made the project without having science teachers available in their schools.
Chief Justice of Balochistan High Court Muhammad Noor Miskanzai, Gwadar Port Chairman Mir Dostain Khan Jamaldini, Makran Commissioner Muhammad Ayaz Mandokhail, National Party’s Ashraf Hussain and Deputy Commander 440 Brigade Col. Abdul Rasheed inaugurated the festival.
The Chief Justice of Balochistan High Court Muhammad Noor Miskanzai also participated in the hands-on activity by Pakistan Science Club with children as a source of encouragement. Nations have used math and science to empower their citizens with higher incomes. Math and science education is not only integral to Pakistan’s prospects for economic growth but also for the national security.
Today, Pakistan’s only deep-sea port city Gwadar is positioned to be an international trade hub and lead country’s ambitions to become an innovator in industrial, technical and strategic domains.
Against this backdrop, the city offers an ideal opportunity to provide its students and youth with world-class quality math and science education to allow them to support and spearhead the economic and technological transformation of the region in the near future. According to a press release currently, public schools in Gwadar face a learning crisis. 26% students in grade 5 cannot read a story in Urdu, 23% students in grade 5 cannot read a sentence in English, and 29% students in grade 5 cannot perform a 2-digit division.
Such quality-oriented interventions can help provide these children with an enabling environment to pursue and absorb high-quality learning. Eventually this will be a push for an increased focus on improvements in math and science learning inside the classrooms, which could prove to be instrumental in Gwadar’s response to the opportunities available to the city, as well as to the province of Balochistan at large.
The event was organised by Gwadar Deputy Commissioner Dawood Ahmad Khilji in collaboration with Gwadar education department, district government, Bamsaar, Gwadar Association of Professionals, Hameed Honda, and Pakistan Alliance for Maths and Science.
