STAFF REPORT IBD: As many as 62 students from four private schools, catering to low-income families in Rawalpindi, have now about as trained in technical drawing as some qualified engineers.
A local IT service provider, Trojans Pakistan, has recently organised a month-long course to teach the ninth and tenth grade students Computer-Aided Design (CAD). The project was funded by UKaid under their ILM education grants for Pakistan.
The CAD course was a pilot project designed to create interest among matriculation students, who might have little or no access to computer, about designing equipment and visualising ideas.
“At the global level, 32,000 secondary school students in over 70 countries are learning CAD, but this is the first time such an initiative has been taken in Pakistan.” said Saad Ahmed Khan, business development manager of Trojans Pakistan, at the ceremony.
He cited a survey that only four per cent of Pakistani secondary-school students want to be engineers.
“This means that science aptitude is decreasing among our youth and creativity is diminishing,” Khan said.
He mentioned that the level of cooperation shown by the private school teachers was wonderful. “They even identified bright students who were interested in learning about engineering,” he remarked.