ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister (PM) Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Friday reiterated the government’s commitment to propel the society and economy towards a bright future on the basis of achieving excellence in education, especially in the field of science.
In a message on the World Science Day for Peace and Development 2017, the prime minister said that this would need a collaborative effort involving the entire society, where the government, private sector, academia and scholars would all join hands for the advancement of our nation.
The PM said, “I have great faith in our people and I am confident that by focusing on the education of our children and youth, and by strengthening the tradition of research and scholarship in the sciences, Pakistan would very soon attain its rightful place amongst the most developed nations of the world.”
He said it was quite impossible to ignore the importance of sciences in the modern world. Science continues to be, more than ever, the primary currency of economic, political and social growth and expansion, he added. He also said that nations that continued to neglect this obvious reality would soon be reduced to abject dependency on the more technologically advanced nations of the world.
Abbasi said that scientific discovery had been the fundamental driver of human progress, development and prosperity, adding that we could rightfully take pride in the fact that scientific inquisitiveness was amongst the most significant legacies of the Islamic world. Muslim scholars kept the passion for scientific knowledge and inquiry alive even during the darkest of ages that engulfed Europe, he stressed.
He further said that the recent remarkable achievement by young Muhammad Shaheer Niazi of Lahore, who published a paper in the Royal Society Open Science journal at the age of 17, was a rejuvenating reminder of the immense potential of our people.
Moreover, the prime minister said that the theme for this year’s World Science Day, titled “Science for Global Understanding”, was indeed very relevant to modern trends. He said that Pakistan had much to offer to the world, and in return it could learn a lot from other nations in the fields of science and technology.
Pakistani solutions, particularly in the areas of healthcare, engineering and computer software, have come to be globally respected, he said. Each year, new challenges were being tackled through a scientific approach in public policy applications, he added. PM Abbasi also said that since the last few years, Pakistani scientists and officials have teamed up to better manage the impact of diseases like polio and dengue fever in the country.
Commenting on the smoggy conditions prevalent in Punjab, the prime minister said that it was yet another environmental challenge that our scientists were working on. I am certain that we would overcome this problem very soon, he concluded.
