ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC), in collaboration with Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), Rawalpindi on Monday organised the opening ceremony of a two-day International Conference on Professional Development in Higher Education: Trends & Practices, Prospects & Innovations. HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed was the chief guest on the occasion, while HEC Consultant Dr Mahmoodul Hassan Butt presented a keynote address. FJWU Rawalpindi Vice Chancellor Dr Samina Amin Qadir, HEC Learning Innovation Adviser Shaheen Khan, HEC Director General Fida Hussain and a large number of faculty members and professionals attended the event. In his message on the occasion, Dr Mukhtar Ahmed urged teachers to ensure character building of students and teach them social values and ethics. He added that apart from imparting education, it is also a responsibility of teachers to groom students. He stressed the need for preparing the youth to cope with challenges the country may face in the future. He said HEC had taken a number of initiatives under its Faculty Development Programme in order to build capacity of universities’ faculty. He revealed that HEC envisions 40 percent of PhD faculty by 2025. Addressing the conference, Dr Samina Amin Qadir observed that new pedagogical paradigms have changed the educational landscape across the world. This, she stressed, requires academicians and reformers to ensure professional development of faculty and teaching staff equipping them with effective teaching methodologies. She noted that technological advancement has brought information about the whole world to the palm of one’s hand, however the abundance of information sources creates influx of actual as well as fake information. “Be careful in using technology,” she cautioned. She regretted that the developing countries borrow policies successful in the developed world without examining their utility in the light of their domestic ground realities. Local scenarios must be in view while evolving higher education policies, she underlined. She also admired HEC for its key initiatives for holistic development of higher education sector in the country. On the first day of the conference, three sessions were held which covered a number of topics including a Repertoire for Learning in Outcome based Education Paradigm; Improving Students’ Learning in Distance Education by Learning Style based Teaching; Courageous Fellowship in Higher Education Commission; Pedagogical Skill Development in Teachers’ Preparation; Faculty Development at Tertiary Level and From Banking Model to Critical Pedagogy: Challenges and Constraints in University Classrooms. Published in Daily Times, March 20th 2018.