Reforms and initiatives: ‘We can end terrorism through quality education’

The government had distributed solar lamps among 200,000 students under the Ujala Programme: Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman

LAHORE:

Finance Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman said on Wednesday that the government had distributed solar lamps among 200,000 students under the Ujala Programme.

Rehman was speaking to a youth delegation. He said the Rs2.5 billion-initiative had been taken to ensure that load shedding did not disrupt their academic endeavours. The minister said lamps and laptops were being distributed among students according to merit during the current fiscal year.

He said terrorism and unemployment could be eradicated by the promotion of quality education. The minister stressed the need for equitable distribution of resources to foster peace and ensure citizens’ welfare. Rehman said corruption, nepotism and unemployment could be curbed by good governance and transparency.

The minister said the government considered education as a development tool and had allocated record funds for the sector. He said Rs2.4 billion had been allocated to provide two million illiterate people with non-formal basic education. Rehman said the comprehensive measures taken by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had increased enrollment in public schools to 11.273 million.

He said UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) Head Richard Montgomery had verified that textbooks had been provided in schools before the beginning of the new academic session for the first time. Rehman said the reforms being implemented in the sector had been lauded by educationist Michael Barber. Rehman said teacher attendance at schools had increased due to the implementation of reforms jointly-formulated by the DIFD and the government.

The minister praised Sharif’s initiative to distribute lamps and laptops among gifted students. He said this would arrest the dropping out trend in remote areas of the Punjab. The minister said the DFID had agreed to provide a Rs351 million grant to finance the construction 15,000 classrooms in public schools with substandard facilities.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2014.