Gilani sees illiteracy behind extremism, terrorism

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has said that education is the key to fight against ignorance, extremism and terrorism, therefore the government had taken a number of steps to promote educational facilities.
Addressing Islamabad Model Schools for Boys and Girls here at the PM Staff Colony, after inaugurating new buildings of these two institutions, he said that illiteracy was root-cause of all destructions including the extremism and terrorism. He said once Muslims were at the top in the world, mainly due to the progress in education.
He said lack of education was the main cause of the downward trend of the Muslims. He said education played an effective and key role in the progress and prosperity of the society. “After the 18th Amendment, the education has become a provincial subject, but the federal government is still making sincere efforts and contributing a lot in the improvement of educational facilities,” he said.
The prime minister said that the federal government has been in consultation with the chief ministers to have a coordinated, correlated and unified system of education throughout the country for providing equal opportunities to the students. “There is need to give due importance to education to fulfill dreams of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Dr Allama Muhammad Iqbal and aspirations of the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto to make Pakistan a strong, stable and prosperous state.”
He said the youth of Pakistan was dynamic, energetic and intelligent but they just needed good opportunities and facilities to groom their talent. “We should not under-estimate our youth as if they will be provided adequate opportunities, they have the talent and they could project the name of the country and their parents in the world,” he said.
He said the government will take important decisions to promote education and special emphasis will be given on teachers training and creating harmony among the teachers and parents to improve educational facilities. The prime minister said teachers and parents should be role-model for the children so that they could be motivated to get education without any hesitation and difficulty to play a due role in nation building.
The schools are equipped with Computer Lab, Science Lab and libraries and each school has 11 classrooms and accommodates 550 students. Later, the prime minister, along with Senator Nayer Bukhari visited different classrooms and exchanged pleasantries with the students. Gilani announced Rs 100,000 to the students who presented national songs on this occasion.