President asks students to develop critical thinking

President Dr Arif Alvi has advised students to develop critical and analytical thinking skills to overcome biases inherent in human nature for judicious decision-making.

He said that the youth needed to be trained to sift through the mass of information and discern misinformation and fake news from accurate information for making intelligent and informed judgements.

The President expressed these views while talking to the students of Cadet College Murree, who called on him at Aiwan-e-Sadr on Thursday.

Talking to the students, the President advised them to keep the doors of knowledge open throughout their lives and learn from past experiences as well as utilise the knowledge and information made readily available to them by Information Technology (IT).

He also urged the students to draw inspiration from the life and conduct of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and learn lessons from the lives of successful persons. This, he said, would enrich them intellectually and socially besides making them better and more useful person for the benefit of society and the country.

While replying to a question, the President said that as the President of Pakistan, he had been working for safeguarding women’s property rights, the welfare and education of differently-abled persons, and promoting the use of Information Technology in all sectors of national importance.

Dr Alvi said that Pakistan needs to increase the number of skilled IT human resources to fill the ever-widening gap between demand and supply of IT professionals in the country and around the world.

Replying to another question, the President said that human resources in addition to natural resources were the essential ingredients for nations to make sustained and fast-track development. He said that in the absence of skilled human resources, the natural resources remained untapped and unexploited, thus hampering a country’s progress.

The president insisted that educational institutions should be fully geared to multiply their capacity to produce highly skilled human resources by adopting online and hybrid methods of imparting knowledge and skills to their students.

This, he added, would ensure a steady supply of skilled professionals capable of effectively utilizing our unexploited natural resources.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 24^th, 2022.