23 March 2004	Tuesday	01 Safar 1425

ISLAMABAD, March 22: Education and people-to-people contact can bridge the gap of perceptions across cultures and help fight the scourge of terrorism, said the US assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs , Patricia de Stacy Harrison, here on Monday.

He was talking to newsmen at the United States Information Centre after meeting the education minister, Zubaida Jalal, and visiting the SOS village Rawalpindi, Visual Arts Centre and Fatima Jinnah Women University.

In reply to a question about Madressah reforms undertaken by the Musharraf government and specific US demands in that context, Ms Harrison said: "In terms of reforming the madressahs that is not something that we are doing."

She said the US was working in collaboration with Pakistan's education minister to provide educational opportunities for every child so that there are choices in life.

Emphasizing the importance of multi-dimensional approach to education, the US assistant secretary said "if you take away the choices, you take away the future. We call it closing the hope gap. So that young people have hope from their own life."

In charge of the educational and cultural bureau that used to be the heart of the old US Information Agency, now absorbed in the State Department, Ms Harrison said she was visiting Pakistan on the invitation of the education minister.

She said the Bureau of Education and Culture was trying to reach a younger group of people and discuss plans under which students from the US could visit Pakistan and participate in conferences.

She said under the culture connect programme, well-known Americans visit different countries to answer questions from young people. The true purpose of culture connect is to connect people on equal basis, go where the young people are and get-together in a way, which leads to much understanding, she added.

In reply to a question about the steps taken by the US to dispel the negative perceptions of Pakistan, she said the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs was trying to find ways to connect, sooner rather than later, younger rather than older people because the US needed to this.

She said her Bureau was working to change the opinion of the people and the negative perceptions of "the other." "We feel that we can have an exchange of young people going on between Pakistan and the United States. Then they will form their own opinion.

When you don't do the things that connect people, then you view the other person as the "other" and not part of you," she said, emphasizing the need for people-to-people contact between the two countries.

She said there were already 30,000 professional, academic and cultural exchanges between Pakistan and the US every year. Ms Harrison said, "We want to reach younger, and deeper and wider.... to make sure our circle gets bigger."

She said education as a common value, education that created jobs was the answer to fight terrorism. to meet the challenges that are out there, she added. Earlier, during her visit to the SOS village Rawalpindi, Ms Harrison presented an "American Discovery Centre" (ADC) unit to the SOS Children Village Rawalpindi.

ADC is a a self-contained digital resource centre, comprising one single computer and 70 books. Speaking on the occasion, Ms Harrison said education remained a priority in the US social sector assistance programme for Pakistan.

"This American Discovery Centre that we are turning over today is not an end point, it is only one small component of more than $100 million that the United States has pledged to the government of Pakistan," she said.

The ADC project is a half million dollar programme and it has equipped over 150 schools, colleges and public libraries with access to latest education technology. The ADC project gives an opportunity to the Pakistani students to broaden their knowledge about the United States.