Education is top-most priority: Shahbaz

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Wednesday said that empowering the youth through education was vital for development of the nation and the Punjab government was spending huge sums of money for this purpose. Addressing a laptop distribution ceremony, he said that Rs 47 billion had already been spent on welfare projects for the youth of the province, adding that rewarding hard working students with laptops was a good motivation for students. He further said that women empowerment through education was a top priority of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and stressed that female employment in all sectors of the economy was critical for development. Addressing the ceremony, he said that the purpose of setting up Punjab Educational Endowment Fund with a budget of Rs 20 billion was to reward talented students of the province. He added that besides laptop, solar lamps were also being distributed among students at a cost of Rs 4 billion. Shahbaz further said that an internship programme for deserving students was also set up. He said 5,000 students from Gujranwala were already benefiting from this programme. Furthermore, Shahbaz said that over 4,000 schools across the province had been equipped with IT labs.