KARACHI: Need stressed to improve system of education: Iqra varsity convocation
KARACHI, June 26: Federal Education Minister Lt Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi expressing concern over the state of country’s education stressed the need to work hard to make headway in this vital sector.
He was speaking as chief guest at Iqra University’s convocation-2005 at its campus here on Saturday evening.
The Federal Minister for Investment and Privatization, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, delivered the keynote address on the occasion.
The education minister was of the view that without improving our school and college level education, the varsities alone would not be able to meet the challenges.
At that very point he talked of an education conference which he had attended and informed that the world’s nations were put according to three grades.
The first consisted of nations that had achieved or those which were progressing very rapidly. The second category was of nations who were ambitious and were working towards it.
The third category was those who had not arrived and were not even really working also. And in this very category, Pakistan was third from the bottom.
“That is the state of our education”, Mr Qazi further remarked.
He further pointed out that the Muslim world excluding Pakistan had 50 million illiterates whereas our country alone had equal number of illiterates.
Mr Qazi pointed out that in this era of globalization, the world is progressing at a very fast pace.
It is neither the army nor piles of weapons but educated manpower that enables a nation to take the leading position in the world, he added.
Mr Qazi said he was happy to see modern disciplines at the Iqra University and said these technical subjects had a market demand and there was no dearth of jobs.
He said the private varsities, colleges and schools were doing a good job and they needed to be encouraged.
However, the minister made it clear that they were also required to maintain the standards.
Speaking on the occasion, the Federal Minister for Investment and Privatization, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, referred to a previous meeting on the state of the Muslim world for the OIC countries.
He said the 57 Muslim countries together had 50 per cent of the world’s resources and 60 per cent of the energy resources.
Yet these Muslim countries have only five per cent of the world’s income and that their share in the international trade was only 10 percent, Mr Shaikh added.
About the investment the 57 Muslim countries attract, the minister said it was less than one country Thailand or Sweden.
“Why is that in spite of so many resources and such potential”, the minister asked and then himself replied that one of the big reasons obviously was that the Muslim world ignored their own people.
Mr Shaikh said the universities of all the Muslim world combined were fewer in number than Japan alone.
He stated that there was hardly any Muslim country’s name among the top 500 universities of the world.
We cannot have developed countries while we have underdeveloped people, the minister said.
Earlier, the President of Iqra University, Dr U.A.G. Isani, presented the welcome address.
Degrees were conferred on the graduating students whereas gold medals were given to those who excelled in various disciplines.—APP
