About the meeting
On the 3rd and 4th of November 2017, EQUIP – Pakistan held the 9th National Convention on Student Quality Circles in Abbottabad, Pakistan which was attended by United Nations ESCAP. This included delegates from other South Asian countries, with over 800 participants engaged in discussions on ways to enhance education. The Youth Policy Toolbox was promoted, including the related training module developed in Pakistan, and was well received by participants, along with valuable feedback.
EQUIP-Pakistan is the sister organization of Modernage Public School, which works to empower youth in the country’s public and private sectors. In the programme, students learn data-driven problem-solving skills by forming Students Quality Circles (SQCs). The SQC programme is a co-curricular activity which fosters a culture of collaboration and cooperation and aims to develop the leadership skills of students. An SQC is a team of five to ten volunteers who work through a problem with the help of statistical tools. They collect data about the causes of an assigned problem, analyse the data and then formulate implementable solutions to address these causes. The convention theme was SQCs from the “Is” of technology: Innovation, Integration, Involvement.
The streams participated in by students in the 9th National Convention were:
- case study presentation
- collage making competition
- debate
- radio jockeying competition
- paper presentation (by students)
- quiz competition
- game development competition
The mission of the convention was to empower students for life by developing in them leadership qualities and a spirit of collaboration, cooperation and coordination and facilitating them to learn data-driven problem-solving techniques through SQCs so they can promote global peace & harmony.