PITB achieves a new milestone in education sector: Dr. Umar Saif

Lahore: The Punjab IT Board (PITB) has enabled the students of Punjab schools to do their homework from electronic books now. It was stated by the Chairman PITB Dr. Umar Saif during a meeting held to review progress on the e-Learn project Wednesday. He said “The project initiated in collaboration of Punjab Schools Department, Directorate of Staff Development and Punjab Curriculum & Text Books Board,  will not only make it easier for students to access knowledge but also help them assimilate it better. An electronic book is different from a conventional book as it does help bridge the logistical issues students face while accessing hard books, but PITB has taken it a step further by incorporating interactive simulations, audio recording of the book and making these books bilingual i.e. in Urdu and English.”

Unfolding the details, Dr. Saif told that the project, ‘e-Learn Punjab’ was inaugurated by the Chief Minister Punjab Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif in January last year after that a repository of 14 digital text books of grade 9th and 10th covering Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics, 40 Story books and 15 Teacher Guides had been published on www.elearn.punjab.gov.pk.“The project although initiated with science subjects, is also digitizing Humanities and Arts subjects. The program is focused on developing electronic content with excellence, promoting it and making it available online. It is also centred on training individuals to better operate this program as 4000 teachers of public schools have been trained in this regard.” He added.

Dr. Saif further said that in next phase, the books of Intermediate classes would be digitized. He said “Interesting games have also been developed that can be used as a tool to impart knowledge by being interactive in nature without boring its audience. A special favourite is a frog dissection simulation in which the student can use tools to operate on the body of the frog while simultaneously learning interesting facts about various species of frogs. PITB understands the importance of education and how this top of the line education is for a new generation that possesses ideology and skill set. Hence, the only thing needed to fuel the student body to get the optimum output from them is to make information and resources as readily available as possible. E-Learn Punjab is becoming so popular among the students, teachers and parents that its website received 53 million hits from 0.44 million unique users so far”