LAHORE, Sept 23: Stressing the need for quality education, acting President and Senate Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro said better qualified people could be attracted to the teaching profession if the government offered them attractive salaries.

Speaking at a function organized to award prizes to position-holders from all over Pakistan, at Alhamra Hall on Tuesday, he said quality education was vital for the development of a nation.

He said developed countries imparted quality education to their masses who, in turn, gave quality output.

Soomro regretted that the violation of merit in teachers’ recruitment in the past had badly damaged the entire education system in the country.

He asked parents to focus on training and character building of their wards and contribute to the development of a better society.

He also advised the students to excel in their respective fields as it was the age of competition. “Even our excellent students could not compete at international level because the students from other countries were relatively acquiring better education, knowledge and technologies”.

He said that students should also learn common global languages and new subjects. He said that the government should also continue to perform its duties regarding the regular revision of syllabi.

The Senate chairman asked the provinces to implement the scholarships scheme in letter and spirit to support talented students. He said that the government wanted the district governments to perform at grassroots level by imparting quality education.

He called upon the parents to develop book foundations to ensure that textbooks did not go waste and instead reached needy students. He also announced Rs50,000 donation for the Carvan-i-Ilm on behalf of his mother.

Talking to reporters later, Mr Soomro said that he was hopeful that there would be a positive outcome of the government-opposition talks on LFO.

Answering a question, he said that Kalabagh Dam should be constructed with consensus, adding that new reservoirs were the need of the hour.

Earlier, NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Husain Shah said that Pakistan had allocated minimum resources for education sector that could not help increase the standards of education.

In NWFP, he said, 25 per cent sanctioned posts of teachers were lying vacant because the government did not have resources to pay salaries.

Also stressing the hiring of teachers on merit, Shah wanted the provinces to purge their education departments of those who had joined the profession through the back door. Teachers’ promotions, he said, should be linked to the performance of their pupils.

Altaf Hasan Qureshi, Ejaz Hasan Qureshi, Mujeebur Rehman Shami and a student, Saadia Fazal, also spoke on the occasion.

Mohammadmian Soomro also presented books to the position-holders.