Atta terms educational institutions vital for socio-economic development
By Bushra Rafique

ISLAMABAD—Advisor to Prime Minister for Science and Technology and Chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC), Prof. Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman Wednesday said universities have key role to play in the process of socio-economic development of the country.
He was speaking as a chief guest at the closing ceremony of 2nd three-day US Pakistan International Symposium on High Capacity Optical Networks and Enabling technologies. Dr. Atta said “Campus size or number of faculty members is not important, the important thing is what we are producing from our universities.”
He said the government was was fully committed to providing quality and knowledge-based education to youth, who are the future of the nation. Dr. Atta said the government is striving to meet the challenges of access of youth to higher education and provision of quality education particularly at higher level.
He underlined the need to promote research culture in higher education institutions of the country. He urged youth to focus more on research work and termed it essential for the progress and development of the country. He said the HEC has launched several programmes aimed at promoting research culture and encourage country’s youth.
He said due to government’s steps several IT institutes are functioning in the country besides seven IT universities. He said these IT institutes are playing an important role for the promotion and development of this sector.
Dr. Atta said the HEC has improved the salary structure of universities’ faculty while handsome packages are also being offered to those experts who have been assigned on contract basis. He said due to support of President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, HEC has been able to provide every possible assistance to the country’s universities and students of higher education to improve standard of education in the country.
He said the HEC’s programmes included video-conferencing and free access to the digital library can play a major role for improving quality of education particularly at higher level.
He said HEC is also providing support to those students engaged in research work for promoting research culture in the country. He said the government was sending 500 talented students on its expenses to foreign universities every year.