Learners with Special Needs: Problems faced by Students and Teachers at University Level

Every person in this world has the right to be educated and by every person means every single person, yes, the persons of special needs as well. About 15 percent of the world’s population has suffered various forms of disabilities such as visual and hearing impairment, physically handicapped, or mental retardation. Literature provides pieces of evidence that this area of education is often neglected and therefore this qualitative research aimed to highlight the importance of inclusive education in Pakistan. As there were limited researches available and most of them are based on document analysis so, the 1st purpose of this research was to find out the problems that a teacher faced while teaching a special learner at a higher education level. 2nd to find out the student’s perspective of studying in an inclusive setting at the university level. For this purpose, a phenomenological design was used and both teachers and their students took interviews. Both teachers and students that obstruct teaching and learning in inclusive classrooms identified the following four zones. (a) Insufficient knowledge of teachers and lack of awareness about inclusion in the classroom. (b) Lack of training employed in inclusive or regular classrooms with differently-abled students; (c) Lack of examination to choose the most suitable aids which helpful for the teaching in the inclusive regular classroom. (d). Learning difficulty and psychological issues in the classroom.

Pakistan’s Exports and Global Economy: Export Competitiveness and Efficiency of Toys and Games

The aim of this study is to examine the export performance and competitiveness of Pakistan's toy exports by using different indices of revealed comparative advantage. The data were looked at from the International Trade Centre (ITC) for Pakistan’s toys exports during 2004-2020. The results of this study show that Pakistan enjoyed a comparative advantage in exporting toys to the world market during 2004-2020, because the RCA index is greater than 1. The positive values of RSCA and LnRCA indicate that Pakistan had a CA in the concerned sector during 2004-2020. The study also observed that Pakistan had a competitive advantage by employing Vollrath index (RCA#). In addition, the revealed competitiveness index (RC) indicates that Pakistan experienced competitiveness in the toy export sector. The RMA index shows that Pakistan also enjoyed a comparative advantage in the imports of toys during 2004-2020. This means that Pakistan also imports these products from other economies of the world. The index of RTA describes that Pakistan had a net comparative advantage in this sector during analysis. TBI illustrates that Pakistan is the net-exporter in the toys and games sector in the global economy. Pakistan's toy manufacturers need to find new innovative and technologically advanced methods to stimulate domestic toy production and exports.

Impact of Critical Thinking Skills on Prospective Teachers’ Academic Achievement

The study intention was to find the impact of critical thinking skills (CTS) on prospective teachers’ academic achievement. The method of the study was quantitative with correlation research design. The sample of the study was 113 prospective teachers using convenience sampling from three departments of teacher education institutions. To assess the Critical Thinking skills of prospective teachers, test was developed by the research comprised of five dimensions i.e. analyzing, assumption, deduction, inferences and interpreting information. Eight statements for each dimension required 40 minute to solve. Psychometric properties i.e. Reliability and validity of test was insured by applying Cronbach alpha which was 0.72. The study results reflect that level of critical thinking skills in prospective teachers were not up to mark (Mean=55.59%), the association amongst CTS and academic achievement was significant and moderate (r=0.365). It is recommended that administrators of teacher education programs should provide opportunities to educators to promote CT skills in prospective teachers.

Footprints of Climate Change, Global Warming, Government Economic Policies on Crops Production: Adaptation Strategies

Climate change has become one of the most imperative snags of this century. Climate change is a grave global threat, and Pakistan has been ranked eighth on the list of countries most vulnerable to climate change by the German watch Global Climate Risk Index. The increasing amount of carbon dioxide (CO2), the foremost contributor to global warming, seems to provoke this problem. Agriculture-based economies have always been dependent on the vagaries of nature and climate. This study in your hand underscores climate change, global warming and government economic policies footprint on four major crop production (Wheat, Rice, Sugarcane, and Cotton) in Pakistan with the help of time-series data acquired from 1977 to 2016. The ARDL bounds espouse test technique relied on ADF test results. The study concluded that climate change and government economic policies have a positive influence on crops produced in the long as well as short-run except global warming and input index, which have a negative influence in the short run. Policymakers and researchers must drive attention to adopt advanced cultivation processes through farming practice through international research institutions' assistance.

Implementation of Reciprocal Teaching Strategies: Improving Reading Skills and Academic Performance of Secondary Students

Proficiency in reading comprehension is very important especially for secondary English language students. In this mixed methods study, the research proven methodological intervention “reciprocal teaching” is introduced to improve the reading skills and academic performance of 30 secondary students of grade 11. Reciprocal teaching is a scaffold dialogue technique that is built upon four strategies which competent readers use to understand text namely predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarizing. The four strategies of reciprocal teaching were each part of the four interrelated cycles that comprised the related activities implemented during the intervention. A general plan inclusive of activities, teaching resources, observation schedules, checklists and assessments was constructed and used for data collection. When the scores of pre and post assessments were compared using paired samples t test, they showed a significant amount of improvement in grades of students as well as their ability to effectively understand the text. The outcomes proved reciprocal teaching to be a significant technique for improving reading comprehension skills and academic performance. In addition, the implication for teachers who teach reading comprehension is that through modeling and implementation of the reciprocal strategies like predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarizing they can enhance the academic performance of students.

How Subjective Career Success of Public Sector Universities’ Teachers Is Affected by Protean Career Orientation?

The study explored the mediating effect of Perceived Employability (PE) on faculty members’ protean career orientation (PCO) and Career Success (CS). The study is exploratory in nature which aimed to ascertain the mediating relationship of perceived employability between protean career orientation and career success of faculty members working in public sector institutions of higher learning. The researchers tried to test protean career theory by developing a conceptual framework. Data were gained through self-administrated questionnaires from the faculty members working in Punjab’s Public Sector Universities. For the purpose of sampling: stratified sampling technique was applied for data collection. Data were obtained from 269 respondents’ for testing the theoretical model. Measurement model was analyzed by applying Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for testing the hypothesis. For this purposed we used SMART-PLS Licensed version 3. The researchers detected a statistically significant mediating role of perceived employability between protean career orientation and subjective career success. Due to the scarcity of financial and time constraints we have collected data from only 12 universities of Punjab, Pakistan. However, the results can be generalized as all the public sector universities are governed by same governing body; named Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC).

The Role of Pro-environmental Attitude Towards Employee Green Behavior: The Mediating and Moderating Role of Motivational States and Green Work Climate Perceptions

Employee green behavior is a kind of environmentally friendly working environment that forms a key foundation for the execution of a company's current plan for sustainable growth. How does the pro-environmental attitude of an employee affect how they do their activities? We investigated the connection between the pro-environmental attitudes and employee green behavior and the functions of encouraging motivational states and green work climate perceptions in order to obtain an answer to this issue. The results show that the employee green behavior of employees was favorably linked and mediated by controlled and autonomous motivations with environmental views. Furthermore, this research found that green work climate perceptions have moderating role on both controlled and autonomous motivations. Finally, we examine the theoretical and practical implications of our results.

Khussa as an Eco-Friendly Footwear Form

The research aims to document the progress of the vegetable tanning of leather hides, involved in the making of local footwear products in Pakistan. The analysis is done specifically on the introduction of Khussa as an environmentally friendly product suitable for the needs of the present target groups. The overall empirical question is to decrease the amount of industrial pollution created in the manufacturing of leather goods through synthetic procedures, especially in the tanning of the leather skins. The observations are based on the pollution intensive environment and spatial urban issues related to trends in technological, economic, social, and political scenario in Pakistan. In the beginning of the paper vegetable tanning and its existence in the leather market of Pakistan will be discussed. Then the involvement of vegetable tanning and manual laborious skills involved in the making of Khussa will be observed to promote ecofriendly procedures in the footwear market. A SWAT analysis at the end of the paper will determine the positioning of Khussa in the present market and how it could be improvised to make it better in future.

Exploring Ideological Construction through COVID-19 Related Headlines in Selected Pakistani Newspapers

The present study explores ideological construction related to corona pandemic with the application of critical discourse analysis and socio-cognitive approach to depict the domination of political authorities through COVID-19 related headlines in selected Pakistani newspapers. This study investigates news discourse critically to observe how this particular type of discourse unveils implicit beliefs, achieve the power and practice hegemony in the society. The researchers have followed the qualitative approach and the news headlines of two English-language Pakistani newspapers; ‘Dawn’ and ‘The News’ have collected through purposive sampling technique. Critical Discourse Analysis (1998) and Triangular Socio-Cognitive approach of Van Dijk(2009) are applied to this study. The findings revealed that ideological construction through COVID-19 related headlines (de)emphasize our/their performance over corona crisis. Use of active constructions and instances with absence of nominalization imply that speakers of news headlines try to represent themselves the sovereign and supreme to manipulate the readers’ ideology and actions over corona pandemic as the biological issue of corona has been made politicized by the selected world leaders. Moreover, Ideology regarding COVID-19 is propagated by authorities to practice societal oppression and power abuse to manipulate the beliefs of the innocent masses. Upcoming researchers can use the data through COVID-19 related headlines in different time frame or can conduct the research as an extension of the present study. Furthermore, comparative study of newspapers and electronic media discourse through COVID-19 related headlines, speeches and interviews can be under taken for the application of the present framework in future.

Relationship between Transformational Leadership Dimensions and Employee Engagement: A Mediating Mechanism of Emotional Intelligence

The mystery of what leaders can and ought to do in order to spark the best performance from their people is age-old. Until recently, no quantitative research has demonstrated which precise leadership behaviors yield positive results. This study takes much of the mystery out of effective leadership. The objective of this paper is to determine the level of prevalence of transformational leadership dimensions in private banks within the boundaries of KPK, Pakistan, and to evaluate whether emotional intelligence mediates between transformational leadership dimensions and Employee Engagement. Kenny’s contemporary approach to mediation was used to test the mediating effect of emotional intelligence. Our results reflect that with the exception of Idealized Influence dimension of transformational leadership remaining three dimensions inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration prevails within banking sector. Similarly, there is no direct relationship between transformational leadership dimensions and employee engagement, rather, this relationship is best explained by incorporating emotional intelligence in the model.