Pakistan: Newsline

Enrolment campaign signs up 300,000 for school

A government official pasting a advocacy poster on the wall in the Hyderabad district.

SINDH PROVINCE, Pakistan – A major primary school enrolment drive has registered over 300,000 children for school in six weeks, according to early data on the campaign. The province-wide enrolment drive, which concluded on 15 September, was the first of its kind in Sindh Province.

According to Raana Syed, UNICEF Chief Provincial Officer in Sindh, the campaign aimed to “raise the issue of low enrolment rates and high drop-out rates, particularly for girls.”

Although primary school fees were abolished in Pakistan in 2002, the country faces one of the world’s largest gender gaps in education.

Fifty per cent of girls and 25 per cent of boys are out of school in the province, the second most populous in Pakistan. Of the children currently enrolled through the efforts of the campaign, 42 per cent are girls and 58 per cent boys.

Afshan brings her daughters, Aroosa, 6, and Fiza, 5, to enroll them in the Government Primary School, Peons Colony Qasimabad, Hyderabad.

“The statistics are clearly showing we have been able to create a hunger” for education, says Ms. Syed. “New ground has been broken with this campaign.”
The campaign was designed and partially funded by UNICEF, with additional funding provided by the Government of Pakistan. UNICEF has also distributed banners, posters and handbills to all districts in order to increase support for social mobilization efforts.

In Hyderabad, walks and rallies have been organized to raise public awareness about education, and the freshly whitewashed school buildings are overflowing with children. “The district is wearing a festive look with colourful banners and posters all around, and you can observe as well the intensive public contact being made by motivated teachers, government officials, district government representatives, Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, and community leaders,” reports Mr. Kanwal Sindhi, coordinator of the Sindh Journalist Network.

“It has been a fantastic coming-together of all partners, stakeholders and volunteers,” says Professor Abdul Majeed Hur, Executive District Officer in charge of Hyderabad’s campaign.

Although the final tally is still pending, many education officials predict that twice as many children will be enrolled in 2005 as in 2004.

In Thatta district, recently enrolled girls sit on the floor in the corridor. Most of the schools in Sindh do not have enough space to accommodate the number of children who registered.

Yet the increase in enrolment is creating new challenges, including increased demand for school facilities, teachers, books and other supplies.
Today, Hyderabad’s schools suffer from severe overcrowding. Many children have to sit on mats on the open veranda, exposed to the scorching sun. “We do not have space to accommodate the swarm of new arrivals,” says Ms. Zahida, a teacher in the Government Primary School in Peons Colony.

“To retain the children who have now come to school, and to ensure they complete their primary cycle, are huge challenges,” remarks Professor Hur. “Providing enough school furniture and free textbooks, installing all the needed facilities such as safe drinking water and latrines, putting enough qualified teachers in place to maintain classes with a reasonable teacher/student ratio, and strengthening the role of School Management Committees are all priority issues engaging our attention now,” he adds.

“This is just the beginning. It’s great to see parents responding positively and sending their children to schools. It’s great too, that the percentage of girls in the enrollment is up to 42 percent from last year’s 37 percent – although it also shows how much further there is to go to close the gender gap,” says Raana Syed.

http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/pakistan_152.html
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PAKISTAN: Focus on improving basic education in Punjab

ISLAMABAD, 11 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - With an extensively advertised mass literacy campaign carrying the slogan, 'Our dream - an educated Punjab', the provincial government of Pakistan's most populous province, has been actively trying to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education (UPE) by 2015 through a wide-ranging Education Sector Reform (ESR) programme.

"[The} Punjab's education reform programme that started in 2003 focuses simultaneously on improving access, equity, quality and governance in the education system," Ahmed Javed Qazi, deputy director of monitoring the ESR programme, told IRIN from the provincial capital, Lahore.

Home to almost 84 million people, comprising 55 percent of the total population of the country, Punjab has better education indicators than Pakistan's other three provinces, with an overall literacy rate of over 55 percent.

IMPROVING ACCESS TO PRIMARY EDUCATION

But there is still a long way to go in improving access to education in the province. According to the provincial education department, out of a total school-age population of 11.23 million, over two million children do not attend school. The statistics for children aged 10 to 12 years are higher, with over 4 million children out of school, while for years 13 to 14, the figure stands at 2.37 million.

The education department in Punjab has been facing several problems ranging from enrolment of out of school children, governance and management related issues to lack of infrastructure and facilities. However, low family income with high costs of school materials has long been cited by the educational authorities as the main reason for low attendance rates.

"As a first step to boost enrolment and bring children into schools, the government has not only waived the fee at public-sector schools but has also been providing free textbooks," Qazi said.

Under a phased three-year programme, in 2004, the provincial government provided free textbooks to all the students from grade one to five. "This year, we will cover students up to grade eight while by the next academic year, the programme will be extended to all the students up to grade ten," a provincial education department official said.

To promote female participation, the government last year introduced monthly stipends in about 15 low literacy districts across the province. "Since the start of the programme, some 200,000 girl students of grade six to eight with 80 percent and above school attendance have been awarded a monthly stipend of 200 rupees [about US $3]," Qazi said.

But some education experts are concerned about the government's 'enrolment focussed' policies and lack of concern about the high school dropout rate of over 50 percent.

Pakistan's leading independent rights body, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), pointed out in its annual report for 2004: "Instead of offering financial incentives to join schools, policies aimed at improving the environment at schools, providing trained teachers, [and] making curricula more relevant to children's lives would play a big part both in increasing enrolment and keeping children at schools."

The physical condition of many schools in the province is another factor mitigating against high attendance. Out of more than 50,000 public-sector primary schools - with about 4.5 million students - some 8 percenthave no building, while thousands more are without drinking water, electricity and toilets.

Under the ESR programme, the Punjab government has allocated the major bulk of resources to the provision of basic infrastructure and facilities in educational institutions. "Some 150 million rupees [$2.5 million] have been given to each of the 34 districts for the provision of basic facilities in primary schools. However, the government intends to further enhance the allocations on performance and need basis," Qazi noted.

The ESR programme has been supported by the World Bank through a grant of $300 million over a period of three years from 2004-2006.

UPGRADING TEACHERS

Education authorities in the province have also been taking steps to improve the quality of teaching staff. "The basic requirement for potential teachers has been raised from matriculation to graduation, while the government has launched intensive refresher courses for over 100,000 in-service primary teachers," Qazi added.

The upgrading process of staff has been a challenge, Qazi told IRIN. "To deal with 'teacher absenteeism' and also to acquaint them with modern teaching methods is a huge task. It's difficult to change the routine of in-service teachers," Qazi noted.

Educational experts have welcomed the changes but warn that improvement will only be evident in the long term.

"To improve access in remote areas, reduce the dropout rate, and most importantly, to ensure teachers' presence in schools - only over time can we assess the effectiveness of such measures. This is a good start but we have to ensure the measures are implemented," Shaheen Attique Rehman, head of a Lahore-based NGO working to promote literacy, Bunyad Literacy Community Council (BLCC), told IRIN.
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The ESR programme in Punjab will be subject to independent monitoring and evaluation, which should help with implementation. "All the previous schemes have been missing this [independent monitoring] component, but we are having independent feedback [at] every step to immediately identify if anything goes wrong," Qazi said noting: "Hopefully, it'll help us in achieving the UPE targets in time."

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?...ountry=PAKISTAN
i know its a bit old bit it has got good info
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Pakistan increases poverty reduction expenditure

POVERTY reduction expenditure in Pakistan continued to increase rapidly in fiscal (FY-2005) as it soared to Rs 316.2 billion as compared to Rs 261.3 billion in FY2004 thus showing an increase of 4.7% of the GDP in the last year.

Over the last three years, the Pakistan government has consistently increased pro-poor public expenditure under its poverty reduction strategy initially spelled out in the Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (I-PRSP) released in February 2001 and later in the Full Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) issued in December 2003.

According to an Asian Development Band (ADB) report, PRSP has identified 17 sectors, expenditure on which has the greatest positive impact on poverty. Public expenditure on these sectors increased from 3.8 per cent of GDP in FY2002 to 4.4 per cent in FY2004.

However, as the government pursued an overall expansionary policy and total expenditure increased sharply, the share of poverty-related expenditure in total public expenditure declined from 27.3 per cent to 26.4 per cent.
Pro-poor expenditure has been grouped under the heads of improving access of the poor to market and community services, fostering human development, accelerating development of rural areas, improving governance, and providing safety nets.

Expenditures under all these heads, except safety nets, recorded increases in FY2005, with the sharpest increase being in expenditure on access to market and community services (46.3) per cent, followed by development of rural areas (34.4 per cent), and governance (20.7 per cent). Expenditure on human development increased by 18.2 percent. Expenditure on education, which accounts for 37.4 per cent of the total pro-poor expenditure, increased by 19.7 per cent to Rs 116.9 billion in FY2005. Expenditure on health increased by 16.3 per cent to Rs 31.4 billion. The sharpest increase of 39.7 per cent was recorded in expenditure on preventive health care measures, which accounted for more than one-third of the increase in total expenditure on health.

The increase in expenditure on preventive health measures was mainly due to a more than four-fold increase in current expenditure and a 68.2 per cent increase in development expenditure by the Government of Sindh. It is encouraging to note that the current expenditure on rural water supply and sanitation, another very important service from the point of poverty reduction, recorded a sharp increase in FY2005.

Rural electrification plays an important role in boosting economy of rural areas where the bulk of the poor live. In the area of governance, expenditure on law and order increased by 20.3 per cent to Rs 47.4 billion and that on justice administration by 26.8 per cent to Rs 3.1 billion.

In addition to pro-poor budgetary expenditure, the government of Pakistan provides safety nets for the poor through transfers from the Zakat (an Islamic welfare fund) and Employees Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI), as well ass microcredit disbursed by the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) through non-government organisations (NGOs), Khushali Bank (KB), and Zarai Taraqqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL). The share of DB in microcredit disbursed in FY2005 was 40.0 per cent, while ZTBL accounted for only 1.0 per cent. The total number of beneficiaries of microcredit increased by 64.3 per cent to 470,000, and the average loan amount availed by them increased from Rs 10, 608 to Rs 12,185.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, said last Monday the government is making efforts to improve and professionalize distribution and supply chain in Pakistan that will benefit consumers and open more opportunities for exports.

"We in Pakistan have an inefficient supply chain and we really want to professionalize distribution and supply systems here," he told reporters at a press conference organised by German-based Metro group to announce its plans to start operation in Pakistan.

Prime Minister Aziz expressed the hope that the Metro's introduction in Pakistan will help improve supply chain in the country.

An efficient supply system helps reduce cost of distribution and thus benefit consumers through less prices and quality products, he added.
Metro Cash & Carry is the international market leader in self-service wholesale and the largest division of Metro Group. With more than 500 stores and 83,000 employees in 28 countries, Metro Cash & Carry's sales reached a volume of more than 26 billion euros in 2004. Prime Minister Aziz described Metro's interest as an important event for Pakistan vis-a-vis attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) to the country.

Metro initially plans to open 10 outlets in all the major cities with an initial investment of 150 million euros and will also help create more job opportunities in the country.

Prime Minister Aziz referred to Pakistan's growing economy that posted 8.4 per cent growth in the last fiscal year, leading to raise in per capita income to 700 US dollars. He said rising income has created an emerging middle class in Pakistan, leading to growing demands and consumptions.

The government also had a programme to improve wholesale market, he said but added, that could best be done by bringing in the private sector.
Prime Minister of Pakistan Aziz, said a good supply chain like Metro can also help in promoting the host country's export. A way to promote exports is get into value chain and tap distribution networks of other countries, he added.
The government, he added, was trying to improve its supply chain as a good wholesale market can help promote a country's products worldwide.
He expressed the hope that Metro will influence the country's wholesale market that, in turn, will benefit the consumers. Highlighting foreign investment potential in Pakistan, Prime Minister Aziz said that Pakistan's economy was expanding and offer opportunities to both foreign and local investors.

He said despite October's earthquake, Pakistan was likely to achieve 7.0 per cent growth target set for the current fiscal year. Prime Minister Aziz said Pakistan offers level-playing field to all investors and many foreign companies are earning handsome profits and returns. He also thanked Metro, whose Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Hans-Joachim Koerber announced 100,000 euros for earthquake victims.

The Prime Minister said Pakistan takes pride in the fact that every country, NGOs, aid agencies contributed to Pakistan's relief efforts.
Welcoming Metro, he said Germany was a very important country and the biggest economy in Europe and more investment coming from that country was a good sign for Pakistan. He underlined the need for the country to adopt new technologies and improve efficiency, transparency and productivity.

Prime Minister Aziz said he was confident that Metro's investment would be a turning point for boosting economic ties between Pakistan and Germany.

http://www.financialexpress-bd.com/...d=13082&spcl=no

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Nargis Rahman – For the love of humanity

By Marylou Andrew

In spite of Nargis Rahman’s pioneering work in education, she knows that no matter how much money is put into the education sector, the problems will keep on growing because the basics are not right. She explains that she has a radical plan in mind to improve the situation, writes Marylou Andrew

In a beautiful white house, in the bowels of Clifton, Karachi, lives a woman, of boundless courage and vitality; a woman with a force of will so strong that she just might change the world through it.

Meet Nargis Rahman. If you ask anyone about her, they will call her a social worker or a peace activist, or perhaps both. But her work defies such narrow definitions. As founder and convener of the Karachi Women’s Peace Committee (KPWC), she has sought to bring together opposing groups on a singular platform for conflict resolution. As head of the Falah Trust, her work for the uplift of education in katchi abadis has been legendary.

Perhaps the reason that people know so little about Rahman is because she is unwilling to project herself, preferring instead to talk about her work. Born to an Arab father and Indian mother, Rahman’s philanthropic pursuits in later life were a direct result of her love for educating children. She recalls a time when her husband was posted to a desolate corner of the country and she took on teaching at a small village school, an experience which shaped her future work.

Rahman first began doing charity work in Lyari in the late 80s’, digging a well for the people when they needed water and providing financing for their daughters’ marriages. When she realized that their problems were constantly multiplying and the funds for her charity work were in short supply. She was forced to take a closer and harder look at the situation to see what she could do to empower the people of the area.

Working under the banner of her NGO, the Falah Trust, Rahman established a small school enrollment programme. She took 200 children from the community and enrolled them into the government schools in the area. The situation in the schools, as expected, was dismal. The buildings lay in a state of decay and the teachers were uninterested in teaching the students.

Rahman had to fight tooth and nail to keep her students in the schools. However, four years and 1,000 students later, she noticed that the drop-out rate, particularly among young boys, was very high. The reason, she says, was simple. The schools may have been functioning but they were teaching very little and even after four years of education, most of the children did not have a grasp on the alphabets.

Unwilling to give up, Rahman took 17 young women and got them free teacher’s training from the Aga Khan Foundation. She then fought with the bureaucracy to have them installed in the government schools. Rahman is extremely grateful for the help of two KMC officials, who, she explains, had the foresight to understand her vision and eventually helped her get academic control in the government schools.

Little did she know that it was going to be a constant uphill battle. With every change in bureaucracy, Rahman went through the same motions over and over again. Even though the drop-outs returned to the school with the installation of the new teachers, the problems of income generation and teaching basic skills remained. Rahman’s pleas to be allowed to start a vocational skills programme in the school fell upon deaf ears. Eventually, she understood that she could no longer be a foster parent to the schools, and turned them over to the government again.

The communities, she recalls, were alarmed by this move, but she reassured them that the government would take care of their children’s basic needs. She knew that they would have to fight for themselves, but also understood that a hitherto backward people could not be expected to have the vision to allocate resources effectively and know what was good for the children.

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“The politicians don’t want institutions because they know that these will make the people strong and eventually give the government very little control over them.”
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As expected, corruption prevailed and Rahman’s trained teachers were transferred out of the schools. Even a year long fight with the city government to have them reinstated yielded no results. In 2002, she established community schools with trained teachers, ran them for a year and then handed them over to the communities.

While Rahman was working for the uplift of the Lyari communities, she also had another project up her sleeve; a project which was a direct result of the sectarian strife of 1994-95. Working with Naushaba Burney and others, Rahman founded the Karachi Women’s Peace Committee in order to make opposing groups in the conflict see reason. Not only was the group horrified at the way in which people were being killed (in mosques during prayer) but also that large numbers of young people were participating in the violence.

KWPCs first forum invited Shia and Sunni ulema to discuss their problems. Nargis Rahman says that they were surprized to find that they had no major differences of opinion; rather it was the politicians who were playing blame games. After being disheartened by the attitude of the politicians, KWPC held a demonstration and Rahman recalls, with great interest, that the majority of the women involved in it belonged to the so-called upper crust of society. The lower classes, though affected by the violence, were uninterested in solutions as existence was far more important.

Evaluating the situation more than 10 years down the road, Rahman realizes that, in essence, not much has changed since 1995. “Individuals,” she says, “are progressing and doing well for themselves, but no one wants to play a role in national development. The poor are busy in their quest for subsistence, the man on the street has no time for politics, and the rich simply don’t care.”

Having said as much, however, Rahman believes that Pakistanis are extremely politically conscious people, but most have evaluated the situation and realized that they do not register as a collective force. She blames the political leaders for suppressing the voice of the people and for not forming the basic institutions that can make this country great.

“The politicians don’t want institutions because they know that these will make the people strong and eventually give the government very little control over them.”

The problem is about more than just corruption, she explains, it has a lot to do with educated leadership, an area in which Pakistan is sorely lacking. “We’ve had the same politicians for the last 30 years, and most of them have neither the education nor the exposure to realize that we are only as big as our country.”

Discussing the ‘soft’ image that Pakistan is so keen to project to the world, Rahman wonders why Pakistan has such a negative image abroad even though the country has had no major revolution to speak of and Pakistanis, by nature, are not a bloody-minded people. Answering her own question, she comes back to the need for the rule of law in order to protect against crime and corruption and safeguard basic rights such as health and education.

No matter which tangent she goes on, Rahman cannot stray too far away from the need for education. In response to a question about Pakistani curriculums relying too much on rote-based learning and not encouraging independent thought, she replies that we need to get the basics right before we move on to bigger issues. “Yes, the curriculum needs to be overhauled,” she says, “but first we need to focus on training our teachers properly and then giving our children basic education.”

In her quest to provide basic education, not only has Rahman worked in Lyari, she has also set up a school for the children of lower cadre policemen and women in an old thana in Kemari, and she has adopted six schools in Clifton under the banner of the KWPC. As part of the Falah Trust’s work to rehabilitate ex-convicts, she has also helped set up her own school for 125 children in a graveyard.

In spite of her pioneering work in education, Nargis Rahman knows that no matter how much money is put into the education sector, the problems will keep on growing because the basics are not right. She explains that she has a drastic plan in mind to improve the situation. “We need to give existing teachers a golden handshake and be generous about it. They are also victims in this situation because they have no money or options. Nevertheless, they need to go; young people need to be trained and the status and salaries of teachers need to be improved.

On the KWPC front, Rahman feels that change has occurred over the years but is still uncertain about whether the committee itself has been responsible for initiating it. She knows that people have yet to understand the importance of public activism and the need to object and agitate when they know something is wrong. “This is only possible when we become an emancipated and empowered people. When we lay a strong foundation, the rest will grow on it, and we will be all the richer and more fortunate for it.”

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/review/review4.htm

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The Citizen's Foundation

www.thecitizensfoundation.org

This is a non-profit organization working to improve the state of education in Pakistan. I feel it would be good to profile it here.

TCF is a professionally managed, not-for-profit organization, established in August 1995 and formally incorporated in September 1996. The organization was set up by a group of citizens, concerned by the dismal state of education in Pakistan. TCF runs its network of well-managed, purpose-built schools in urban slums and rural areas across Pakistan and serves all persons and communities on a completely non-discriminatory basis.

Our Mission
T
o promote mass-scale quality education at the primary and secondary levels in an environment that encourages intellectual, moral and spiritual growth.

Our Goals

Quality Education:
To provide children with knowledge and literary skills.

Large Network of Schools:
To establish 1,000 school units in less privileged areas of Pakistan and cater to 360,000 children.

Character Building:
To equip children with high moral values and to inculcate the confidence to act in that direction.

What We Have Achieved

As of April 2005, we have:
-224 school units in 26 locations across Pakistan
-Increased our enrollment capacity to 44,500+ students.
-More than 30,000 enrolled students.
-A balanced gender ratio; close to 50% female students.
-Created more than 2,600 jobs, of which 1,600+ are teachers and principals.
-1 teacher training centre currently providing 9 weeks of entry-level training to about 350 teachers annually & 4 weeks of developmental training to about 1,600+ teachers during summer vacations.
-High non-profit governance rating of GR-8 from JCR-VIS Credit Rating Co. Ltd.
-Gained certification from PCP (Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy). TCF is amongst the highest scoring organisations certified by PCP to date.
-Raised public awareness about the dire illiteracy problem in Pakistan.

Our Long Term Mission

1,000 school units educating 360,000 children

This organization is amazing. Support them, promote them, donate to em. Help improve literacy in Pakistan.

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Hijr me lazt-e-talb, wasl main marg-e-arzoo...!!!

Waste lands to be reclaimed: Ata

By Our Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Feb 18: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) will collaborate in the massive salinity management programme with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) to bring vast areas of salinity-hit waste lands into productive use.

This was stated by Adviser to the Prime Minister for Science and Technology and HEC Chairman Prof Dr Attaur Rahman while presiding over the concluding session of a two-week international training workshop on Bio-Saline Agricultural Technology organized by PAEC’s Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology here.

He appreciated PAEC’s contributions in research and development in nuclear power, industrial support services, health and agriculture.

Dr Ata said the HEC intended to develop an extensive salinity management programme alongwith the Indus Left Bank outfall canal with demonstrated technology evolved by the PAEC which utilized saline lands by growing salt-tolerant crops.

He said about 14 million acres of saline and water-logged waste lands in the country required urgent technological solutions.

He said the proposed HEC-PAEC project for utilizing these lands would help alleviate poverty and stop migration of local people by providing them means of livelihood.

He urged the scientists to use research as commercial wealth and offered to join hands with the PAEC in other areas of national importance as a step to lead the country towards knowledge-based economy.

PAEC Chairman Parvez Butt said the newly-created commission’s Biosciences Pvt Ltd aims at delivering the fruits of research to the end users.

He said the PAEC would reach out to the farmers and provide them productive technological tools and quality services at affordable rates.

He said the commission was operating 13 cancer hospitals in the country which were providing medicare to more than 350,000 patients while six more such hospitals were being built.

Besides, the existing cancer treatment facilities will be expanded and upgraded, Parvez Butt said.

He said PAEC’s research and development programme encompassed diverse areas which were mutually supportive as nuclear technology was a binding force between all of them.

He said there had been steep rise in resource allocation to PAEC for its nation-building programme which resulted in the expansion of work output and increase in number of projects undertaken during the last five to six years.

In his introductory lecture on bio-saline technology, Member Biosciences PAEC Dr Kausar Abdullah Malik said engineering solutions for reclamation of saline lands were expensive and time-taking, adding that there was a need to utilize the salinity-affected lands.

The PAEC through use of bio-tech and nuclear techniques had identified the crops/trees which could be grown on these lands, he added.

Dr Kausar said as part of its international collaboration, the PAEC was providing bio-saline agricultural technology to nine IAEA member countries under the auspices of IAEA technical cooperation programme.

He said the PAEC was already undertaking reclamation of 25,000 acres of saline land in the country under the farmer participatory programme for which the federal government had allocated Rs178 million.

Dr Edith Taleisnik, Professor of Plant Physiology from Argentina, who attended the workshop as expert lecturer informed that a bilateral agreement between Pakistan and Argentina was being drafted which would cover sharing of agricultural experiences.

The host of the workshop, NIAB Director Dr Iqrar Khan said the PAEC conducted these training workshops on regular basis to train its own human resource and those from the IAEA and OIC member countries. The workshop was jointly organized by the PAEC, HEC and Comstech.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/19/nat5.htm

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Aalam-e-soz o saz main, wasl se barh ker hai firaaq
Hijr me lazt-e-talb, wasl main marg-e-arzoo...!!!

Rs90bn promised for new varsities

By Our Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Feb 18: The government has decided to provide incentives and financial and physical infrastructure to help the country’s engineering industry strengthen its technology and increase exports from the sector, Higher Education Commission Chairman Dr Attaur Rehman told Dawn on Thursday.

“The president and the prime minister have agreed to provide Rs90 billion to set up six engineering universities,” he said.

He said a technology-based ‘Industrial vision and strategy for Pakistan’s socioeconomic development’ had been prepared by the HEC and Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.

The engineering industry, he said, constituted one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world and its share in trade had increased from 55 per cent in 1990 to 63 per cent in 2002. “However, in Pakistan its contribution to exports has remained negligible,” he said.

The study submitted to the government, Dr Rehman said, called for identifying specific sectors in which Pakistan should invest so that it could achieve a high growth target and achieve rapid development.

It covered major productive sectors of the economy — agriculture, industry and services –- and there was focus on engineering goods, textiles, leather, materials, chemicals process industries, pharmaceuticals, electronics, energy, telecommunication, information technology, construction and housing as well as transport sector, he said.

“In order to achieve rapid growth in each sector, we need to substantially strengthen research and development efforts and create the necessary human resources which can face the challenges of globalization and international competition,” the HEC chairman said.

Responding to a question, Dr Rehman said the six universities would be set up in 10 years and their PC-1 was being finalized for approval by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec).

“For these universities, heads of the departments will be hired from France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria, Japan and Korea,” the HEC chairman said. He said modern system of education from abroad would be introduced in the universities.

He said that of the 10,000 teachers in the country’s universities, only 3,000 possessed PhD degrees.

“The effort is to also provide access to higher education, which is just 3.7 per cent, compared to 17 to 23 per cent in other countries,” he said.

“We are putting pressure to get universities and degree-awarding institutions with inadequate facilities closed,” the HEC chief said. By February 2007, a number of such institutions would be closed, he said, adding: “In fact, these are not universities but glorified colleges.”

In reply to a question, he said that out of 12,000 applicants, about 400 students had been short listed to be sent abroad for higher education. A German team recently interviewed some students for higher education in Germany, for which the HEC would bear the expenses.

Every year, 500 students were being sent abroad for higher education, for which a $150 million programme had been started with the support of Fulbright Scholarship. The government had agreed to stretch higher education budget to one per cent of the gross national product by providing 50 per cent increase annually, he said.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/19/nat24.htm

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Hijr me lazt-e-talb, wasl main marg-e-arzoo...!!!

Agri research for poverty alleviation stressed

By Our Staff Correspondent

FAISALABAD, Feb 20: Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool has stressed the need for linking agricultural research with poverty alleviation by increasing farm production.

Speaking to participants of a two-day international wheat seminar held here at Ayub Agriculture Research Institute (AARI) on Monday, he said the government was taking elaborate measures to strengthen agricultural economy on sustainable grounds.

He said: “Farmers are the focal point of all these steps and in spite of our best efforts poverty is prevailing in rural areas and now we must take new result-oriented initiatives to bring about prosperity in rural areas.”

In this connection, the governor said improvement in agriculture marketing system, value addition in raw products and an over-all quantitative change in rural society were necessary measures.

He said farmers must know that which crop would give them better price at the time of harvesting. Similarly, value addition in farm products was also imperative to strengthen the agricultural economic system.

He said Pakistan was the fifth largest milk producing country in the world.

“We can produce a long chain of various value added products, right from packed milk, butter, cheese and yogurt to flavoured ice cream.”

The governor said it was imperative to encourage farmers and cattle breeders to increase their income by further enhancing the production of milk and meat.

He said best efforts were being made to transfer new technologies to farmers. Earlier, Indian scientist Raj K. Gupta, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) chairman Dr Ehsan Tehseen and other scientists also spoke on the occasion.

Meanwhile, the governor sent 25 truckloads of food articles, medicines and tents arranged by local industrialists for earthquake victims.

He also distributed cheques among the deserving people and brilliant students during a ceremony arranged by the Punjab Baitul Maal.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/21/nat29.htm

NAEAC set up

By Our Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has decided to establish National Agriculture Education Accreditation Council (NAEAC) with immediate effect. The establishment of the council has been notified by the HEC, which was approved by the Commission in its 9th meeting held on November 26, 2005.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/22/nat17.htm

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