Terming foreign aid a root cause of all the country’s issues, Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Ishaq Dar said on Monday that Pakistan needed to stop relying on foreign aid. “It is time to break the begging bowl and achieve self-reliance in the interest of complete independence,” he said while talking to journalists after the inauguration of a workshop at University of Health Sciences (UHS).
Dar said that refusing foreign aid was not easy but this was what every Pakistani wanted. He said that he was confident that the decision taken by the Punjab would prove to be a starting point of a national movement for economic independence, national sovereignty and security.
“The decision to give up foreign aid does not mean that relations with other countries should be impaired. This decision is aimed at the promotion of trade instead of aid,” he said adding that Pakistan was fighting for its existence therefore the entire nation, especially the elite, would have to make sacrifices. He was of the view that problems, which may arise because of disregarding foreign aid, would be only transitory. “The nation needs to revisit its priorities. If the nation decides to depend on its own resources and works with commitment, Pakistan could achieve self-reliance,” he said adding that Pakistan had no dearth of resources.
It was unfortunate that only 9 percent of the GDP came from taxes which should be increased to at least 15 percent, he said adding that the decision not to take foreign aid should be adopted for reducing unnecessary expenditure. Earlier, addressing the participants of the 4-day workshop being organized by UHS in collaboration with University of Liverpool, UK, Dar said that the collaboration between the two institutions would give the curriculum an international perspective. He emphasized that local problems needed indigenous solutions and expressed hope that the standards, UHS has achieved and was striving to maintain, would eventually lead to setting up of University of Liverpool campus in Pakistan in collaboration with UHS.
He said there has been an increase in health budget from Rs 13 to 38 billion in the last three years because health and education were on top of the government’s priority list. “Regularization of the services of 6000 doctors working on contract for the last 12 years, establishment of four new medical colleges, an increase of 950 MBBS seats in medical colleges, provision of mobile health units in rural areas, availability of free medicines, renal dialysis and complete air-conditioning of hospitals are some of the initiatives the present government of Mian Shahbaz Sharif had taken to provide healthcare to the people of Punjab,” he said.
UHS Vice Chancellor Professor Malik Hussain Mubbashar said that teachers in medical colleges needed to change their attitude to provide quality medical education. Professor Mubbashar said both universities had a strong commitment to enhancing student-centred learning and teaching experience. Some pertinent issues in this regard were critical thinking, reflection, self-assessment and actualization, which would be addressed in the workshop, he added. UHS Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) Director Prof Arif Rashid Khawaja said that UHS has been awarded the ‘Inspire grant’ by the British Council for supporting joint academic and research programmes with University of Liverpool, UK.
He said that UHS project has been selected as one of the 17 successful awards out of 123 applications received from both Pakistan and UK. The British Council and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan approved the proposal after detailed evaluation. University of Liverpool’s Centre of Life Long Learning Director Prof Dr Ian Willis said that under the project, UHS and Liverpool University would organize workshops and exchanges of staff to support a student-centred approach to medical education and to identify appropriate changes in assessment approaches. One important component was to support PhD applicants of high quality at UHS, he added.
University of Liverpool Postgraduate Diploma/Masters Programme Co-Director Dr Janet Strivens also addressed the workshop, which was being attended by senior faculty of medical and dental colleges.
