Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS) in collaboration with Mustehkam Parlimaan (MuP) designed a Train The Trainer programme to create a cohort of potential Parliamentary facilitators who will be trained in specific areas to advance towards becoming subject specialists and experts in their respective fields. This consolidated professional cadre of experts will be well equipped to train and teach fellow parliamentary officers and other relevant participants. The programme was divided into two phases: Phase I focusing on the content development and subject specialization, whereas Phase II will focus on delivery techniques.

The phase I of the National Parliamentary Train The Trainer workshop took place at PIPS campus , Islamabad from July 18 to 20, 2023. The workshop was attended by 28 officers of the National Parliament and the Provincial Assembly Secretariats.

The programme began with the recitation of the Holy Quran. Dr. Syed Pervaiz Abbas, Deputy Team Lead, Mustehkam Parlimaan, in his opening remarks explained the gist and importance of the Train the Trainer workshop. Ms. Samer Awasi, D. G. (PDP & C), further described the theme of the Train The Trainer workshop along with the programme’s overview and objectives.  The worthy Executive Director, PIPS, Mr. Muhammad Anwar, formally welcomed the participants and wished them well for this journey towards becoming a professional trainer.

As the main focus of the workshop was to enable the participants to develop content for their respective subject training sessions, the participants were initially familiarized with the stages of training, followed by creative thinking techniques and the aura of a trainer, during the first day of the workshop. On day 2, participants were divided into three groups according to their fields i.e Legislative Business, Non-Legislative Business, and Parliamentary Research. Each thematic session was facilitated by the subject experts: Mr. Mohsin Abbas Syed, Mr. Muhammad Anwar, and Prof. Dr. Sajib Bashir respectively. The participants were orientated to sources and links to gather information as well as best practices around the world were also discussed along with the modern tools or software that are available on-line or otherwise, to develop different forms of information. On the last day of the workshop, all the participants were directed to present the scheme of their session that they would take in TTT Phase II. Participants were advised to prepare their presentations before TTT Phase II. The workshop ended with the closing remarks by the D. G. (PDP & C), Ms. Samer Awais.