17 October 2004	Sunday	02 Ramazan 1425

ISLAMABAD, Oct 16: Federal Education Minister Lt-Gen (retired) Javed Ashraf Qazi has directed the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) to prepare PC-1 for setting up of 15 polytechnic and monotechnic institutes in the capital.

He was talking to FDE Director-General Brig (retired) Maqsoodul Hassan during his visit to Federal Government Secondary School for Technical Education, G-6/2, here on Saturday.

Instead of more schools and colleges, the capital needs polytechnic institutes for skill-oriented education, the minister said.

He said he would take up the case of the establishment of technical schools and colleges in Islamabad with the Planning Commission. The country, he said, was in dire need of skilled labour, therefore more polytechnic institutes should be established.

He said the labour trends all over the world had changed, and now the demand was for skilled and technically trained labour, but Pakistan was lacking in this regard.

During the visit, the minister also went to the metal, wood works, and electrical workshops of the school and talked to the students.

Later, talking to journalists, Mr Qazi said the curriculum would be rationalized and aligned with the modern era requirements without compromising the national and religious principles.

He said a review committee would be entrusted with the task to incorporate modern technical and scientific developments in the curricula. All religious schools of thought would be given representation in the committee, so that a unanimous decision could be taken, he said.

Answering a question, he agreed that there was a dire need for revision of teachers' salary structure.