President stresses focus on education

RAWALPINDI—President General Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday underscored the need for concerted efforts in scientific education in order to catch up with the technological advances in the world for fast-track economic development and ensuring Pakistan’s rightful status in the comity of nations.
The President made these observations while chairing a meeting to review and discuss setting up of nine new universities of engineering and science and technology across the country at a total cost of Rs. 250 billion. He directed the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to move rapidly towards bringing these universities on ground in the shortest possible time.
Chief Minister Punjab, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, Chief Minister NWFP, Akram Khan Durrani, Chairman Higher Education Commission, Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance, Dr. Salman Shah, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission, Dr. Akram Sheikh and other senior officials attended the meeting. Reaffirming the strong commitment of the government to the promotion of higher education, President Musharraf said that the all resources would be utilized to achieve the goal of quality education to take the country forward on the path of progress and economic development. In this context, he referred to the quantum increase in budget allocation from a mere Rs. 600 million to Rs. 22 billion over the past six years. President Musharraf said that the new nine world-class institutions of higher learning that are being set up with the cooperation of developed countries will help create a quality manpower in sync with the industry and meet standards of the global demands in the fields of engineering, science and technology.
The President has already performed the ground-breaking of one of these universities in Lahore, being set up in collaboration with Austria, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has laid the foundation-stone of a university in Karachi with French collaboration. The government is aiming to commence academic session of these universities by 2007-8. Briefing newsmen after the meeting Chairman HEC, Dr. Prof. Atta-ur-Rehman said the admission to these universities would strictly be on merit and the government would encourage bright students through partial or full scholarship, especially those belonging to the low-income strata.
The other universities would be set up in Hyderabad, Peshawar,Multan, Sialkot, Faisalabad and one in the Balochistan province. All the nine universities would together produce upto 50,000 graduates and besides engineering and science and technology, these institutions would also teach other subjects of basic sciences. Each of these universities will have a technological part and access to venture capital, Dr.Atta said. Responding to a question, the HEC Chairman said that upto 4,500 graduates from these universities would be sent abroad for Ph.D.programme. About the standard , he said that a consortium of universities in all the nine counties, collaborating with Pakistan, would work towards the development of these institutions.—APP