Extracurricular activity: Govt colleges to stage sports events bi-annually

Minister says aim is to inculcate passion of sportsmanship among students

LAHORE: Sports events will be held twice every year in public-sector colleges, said Punjab Higher Education Minister Syed Raza Ali Gillani on Monday.

While addressing the annual sports day at Government Postgraduate College for Women, Raiwind on Monday, the minister said that instructions have been issued to the divisional directors for staging the events.

“The purpose is to promote the passions of sportsman-spirit, leadership as well as positive social norms in the youth so that they could be developed as best human beings,” he added.

The minister said that sports grounds should remain filled with the youth, because when grounds were full, then hospitals would be deserted. He added that a detailed departmental roadmap had been chalked-out in consultation with the 721 colleges’ administration to provide necessary missing facilities at the earliest and their suggestions would be included in the upcoming development budget of the higher education department for the financial year 2017-18.

Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif had a clear vision to make Pakistan stronger through education-promotion and this vision was being fully implemented by the higher education department, because higher education was the backbone of every sector, including the economy, said Raza. Teachers must also help students connect with the world and understand the issues that practical world faces, he added.

He asked the teachers to sensitise their students about Islamic teachings of character building so as to develop their girl-students as best mothers and team-players in their future life.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2017.