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A Chitrali in Melbourne (Australia)

Following is an interview of a Chitrali student presently studying in Melbourne Australia, published by the Herald Sun, Melbourne titled 'FUN WITH OVERSEAS STUDENTS':

A qualification motivated by career goals is the prime reason most people take up tertiary study. But don�t underestimate a less obvious factor: the chance to study alongside students from around the globe.
All universities now have a large contingent of overseas students. Of RMIT�s 60,000 students, nearly 10,000 are international. At the University of Melbourne, about 25 percent of the student population is from overseas, as are more than 4000 of La Trobe University�s 25,000-plus students.
Mir Zaman Shah, 34, is from Chitral, one of the remotest districts of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. Snow cuts off the district from the rest of Pakistan for four to five months each year, one of many contrasts with his life at RMIT University Melbourne.
Shah is studying for Masters in Education, specializing in educational leadership and management. But getting to this level has been far from easy. �The learning conditions in my primary and secondary schools were very poor and harsh. My primary school teacher had only studied up to class three. Putting up with caning and being abused by teachers was a routine practice throughout my school life,� he says
Shah moved to Pakistan�s biggest city, Karachi, where he completed a Bachelor of Science degree (B.Sc), which he financed by tutoring other students. �By doing so, I realized that I had the potential to become a teacher,� he says.
In 1994, he started teaching in a private school in Karachi, completed a Bachelor of Education degree (B.Ed) from Karachi University in 1996, and then joined Aga Khan Education Service Pakistan (AKES, P) before returning his own district as a science teacher in a girls� high school.
�AKES, P is a non-government and non-profit private agency which is focusing on promoting female education in the remotest areas of Pakistan including my district. The district has now the highest female literacy in the entire province and the credit must go to AKES, P, which has played a key role in promoting girls� education in remote and backward valleys of Chitral,� he says.
After working as science teacher for five years, Shah was promoted as Cluster Head in the Field Education Office in 2001. In 2004, AKES, P�s sponsorship allowed Shah to complete a Master of Education (Teacher Education) degree with overall distinction from Aga Khan University � Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED). �It was a great achievement for me coming from such a shaky and socio-economic background,� he says.
From 2005 to 2007, Shah worked with AKU-IED as teacher educator, contributing to its initiatives for the capacity-building of teachers, teacher educators and school principals in Central Asia and different provinces of Afghanistan.

Re Produced By:
Sher Ahmed AKU Karachi