LAHORE
Former federal minister and Beaconhouse National University Vice Chancellor Sartaj Aziz has stressed the need to stop negative political interference in the affairs of public sector education.
Addressing as the chief guest at inaugural session of a three-day international conference on “Education in Pakistan: issues, challenges and reforms” held at the Law College Auditorium in the New Campus here on Thursday, he said interference in administrative matters, recruitment and transfers of teachers and conduct of examinations in public sector education should come to end to promote merit and professional academic standards.
Sartaj Aziz said the country’s literacy rate was the lowest in South Asia. He opined 4 per cent of GDP must be allocated for this sector and proposed increase in the education budget from the existing Rs 300 billion to at least Rs 600 billion by 2015. For this purpose, he advocated transfers from the divisible pool under the 7th NFC Award for education sector.
Speaking on the occasion, MNA Ahsan Iqbal said education polished hidden capabilities and talents of students to make them useful for themselves, the society and their country. He urged students to develop a creative and innovative mind. He underlined the need for serious national dialogue to divert scarce resources to the education sector after meeting the country’s debt servicing and defence requirements.
Acting Vice Chancellor Dr Jamil Anwar Chaudhry observed participation in today’s knowledge-guided society demanded new skills and higher education in which competent and professional teachers had to play a crucial role. Prof Dr Haifz Muhammad Iqbal said though overall literacy rate had increased gradually, but the number of illiterates had swollen significantly from 20 million to 64 million during the six decades in the country.
He said the failure of every government to allocate adequate financial resources for education in annual budgets was the major factor for low literacy rate and educational backwardness. Therefore, Dr Haifz Iqbal underlined the need to conduct an in-depth analysis of the causes of the low literacy rate.
Dr Kahlid Iqbal paid glowing tributes to Prof Dr Hafiz Muhammad Iqbal on the successful holding of the international conference on education which had provided a unique opportunity to discuss issues concerning different levels of education and offer suitable recommendations to implement the much-needed reforms in the country’s academic sector.
