Knowledge Platform held its 4th annual awards ceremony for the Learn Smart Pakistan (LSP) challenges held in 2017 today at Hotel Margala, Islamabad. Learn Smart Pakistan – a non-profit initiative launched in 2014 with the aim to provide quality education for free – is a digital learning platform for teachers and students from grades 6 to 12. LSP offers a variety of educational material and virtual practice challenges structured on the Pakistani board exams to its users.
Our honorable chief guests, Hasnat Qureshi, Director General at Federal Directorate of Education and Chairman at Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (PEIRA), Barkan Saeed, Chairman Pakistan Association for Software Houses (P@SHA) and Saqib Shahab, Director Schools of Federal Directorate of Education, were present at the event.
This year’s award ceremony was for the 64 winners and 28 runners up from 2017’s summer, fall and winter challenges. Winners were awarded tablets, whereas the runners up were given ‘Shields of Recognition’ for their participation.
The ceremony began with a welcome address by Country Head of Knowledge Platform, Talhah Munir Khan. Mr. Khan spoke about the future of education in Pakistan and the value of innovation in teaching and learning in today’s day and age. Mr. Khan was followed by 3 participants who spoke about their experiences with LSP and how it helped them evolve as students.
This year, a total of 19,743 people participated in the competitions – more than double the number from the previous year. A geographic distribution shows that 5357 of the total participants were from the Federal Capital Territory area, 8004 were from Punjab, 4252 were from Sindh, 1721 were from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 233 were from Balochistan. 88 people from Azad Jammu & Kashmir, 78 from Gilgit-Baltistan and 10 from FATA also took part in the competitions.
Following the speeches from participants, names of the winners for the Highest Proficiency awards were announced. Seeing students from all over Pakistan and across the socio-economic spectrum standing up on stage together was heart-warming and a true depiction of what educational equality can achieve. While most of the winners and runners up belonged to major cities like Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan and Karachi, 17 of them were from remote areas, such as Chakwal, Sobhodero, Bahawalpur, Sheikhupura and Khairpur.
After the awards were distributed, Hamdah Tahir, who joined the platform in 2015 and has used it to prepare for her board exams every year since, spoke about her experience with LSP. She said, “LSP is playing its part to promote quality education in Pakistan. It has been successful in capturing interest of every student as it makes studying seem more fun.”
Over the years, LSP has become a valuable source of content for its users, as is evident from their reviews. Given the company’s aim to provide a meaningful experience for a user base that grows exponentially every year, LSP’s development team has been working tirelessly since its inception in 2014. New updates are rolled out every few months and the content library is constantly being expanded, among other modifications to improve the overall user experience. In fact, LSP is set to undergo a major revamp this summer that will make it an invaluable supplementary source for students and transform the way students participate in challenges.
In the feedback session conducted by Director Learning Solutions of Knowledge Platform, Caspar Groeneveld, parents of the students expressed their gratitude to the team behind LSP for providing their children access to quality education and equipping them with the knowledge and tools to compete on a national level.
The closing keynote was delivered by the guest speaker, Hasnat Qureshi, who stressed the importance of using ICT tools for learning. He said “In this day and age it’s indispensable to learn fast so we need to keep up with technological advancements. Learn Smart Pakistan is one such platform that puts you at the forefront of learning.”
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