Abbas Husain
Abbas Husain is a Pakistani scholar who has directed the Teachers' Development Centre since 1997. He is one of the founders of the Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (SPELT) and has published in national and international journals. Recently, he has launched the School of Intelligences, a pre-primary and primary school dedicated to the theory of multiple intelligences. The Teachers' Development Centre is a collaborator of the Charter for Compassion in Pakistan.
Husain is well-known as an advocate of the intellectual authority of teachers in society. His contributions to education and teacher training has earned him a reputation as a critic of practices in Pakistan's schools on all levels. He has an MA in English Literature and an MEd for teaching English to speakers of other languages from Manchester University.
Having co-authored three textbooks of Islamiat and having been published by Oxford University Press in Pakistan, his major contribution is his complete study of the Quran in English, completed after six years in 2002, which according to him is “an intelligent faith-based interpretation of the Quran with a keen eye for the challenges and contradictions of modernity.”
His mission is to offer primary and secondary teachers of all subjects in the system, both government and private, a set of options, classroom-based ideas of teaching, learning and growing that are practicable in the real situations obtaining in Pakistan, both urban and rural.
Having worked with other scholars like Professor and Dr. Hamid Hasan Bilgrami (author of Fuyuz-ul-Quran) for over 25 years, Husain’s credentials as an Islamic scholar are not traditional but fueled by his personal passion for the subject. His personal library contains an almost complete contemporary map of Islamic/Quranic studies in English and Urdu, together with which his own study of classical sources of Islam allows him a balanced stance towards modernity.
Abbas Husain has given public lectures in London (2001) and Houston (2002), presented regular speaking invitations from different organisations and institutions, and made television appearances on various leading television channels in Pakistan elaborating on the Quranic text in urban Pakistan. His tapes have also been received with high regard within the Muslim communities in Chicago, Toronto, London, Hong Kong and Singapore, among others.
Having attended various international conferences such as Voices of Wisdom in Pretoria, South Africa, in 2005, Husain concluded a digital video conferences project titled Passing on Islam with the Islamic Society of North America conducted for and by teachers and educators in Pakistan and the United States. In 2006, he addressed the seminar Islam and the Modern World in Islamabad with the President as the chief guest. From 2009 to date, he has regularly been conducting a Quranic Study Circle in Karachi. He is member of Faiz Ahmed Faiz Centennial Committee.
In 2010, he was also involved in gender sensitization workshops for the legal community in Pakistan catering to prison officials, judges and lawyers, under the leadership of Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid. He conducted workshops for jails wardens and superintendents’ and officers of the judiciary regularly.
Husain has so far reached over 35,000 teachers all over Pakistan. As director of the Teachers' Development Centre he has conducted the Master Teacher's Course since 1997 and has so far contributed 289 teacher trainers to the national pool of trainers. Of them 62 have achieved leadership positions in their respective institutions. He is recognized as a source of original thinking in education and is invited by Roots School System in their Annual Teacher’s Development Conference, as well as the Sindh Education Foundation for keynotes and Seminar Papers. His articles in newspapers and magazines, and television programs (recently on Dawn News) have made him well known as a catalyst for change.
The Teachers' Development Centre has been a significant contributor to a variety of training needs and services. The Aga Khan Foundation, CBORC, Sindh Education Foundation, Notre Dame Institute of Education, The City School Network, The Beaconhouse School System, The Defence Housing Authority School Network, Cadet College Petaro, have all invited the Director for an ongoing dialogue on improved education in Pakistan.
Husain has been active in the Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development Program (training 375 educators at the Colleges of Education all over Sindh). The Teachers’ Development Centre is a partner with the British Council in their Connecting Classrooms Project.
In February 2009 he attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington with President Obama as Chief Guest.
He conducted a series of teachers’ training workshops March 2010 in Pakistan School Muscat, Oman.
At present he is Visiting Faculty at Department of Visual Studies, University of Karachi, ERDC and Institute of Business Management, in their MBA in Educational Management Course.
Qualifications and training experience
Institutions attended
Husain has attended educational development programs at the following:
Training experience
Language workshops for the corporate sector
Television and radio appearances
Husain has appeared on GEO, Indus, Dawn News, HUM, and AAJ News.
He has also participated in a Radio Program at Houston (May 2001) where he addressed Pakistani parents on some ideas about parenting youth in the Age of Media. He speaks both Urdu and English.
He has been invited as an Islamic scholar for private and public gatherings on religious occasions since 1998.
Conferences attended
Papers read at
Publications
References
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