ISLAMABAD, April 14: The federal government is considering a proposal to launch an education policy in consultation with provinces to provide primary education to all children (100 per cent) in the country within two years.

This was stated by Minister for Education Ahsan Iqbal while speaking on a call-attention notice in the National Assembly on Monday.

The minister regretted that the net investment in education in the last seven years remained at only 1.8 per cent of the GDP.

He said his ministry was engaged with the provinces to make a comprehensive education policy which could provide equal educational opportunity to the poor and the rich and to introduce uniform syllabus.

He regretted that the country’s human development index had witnessed no remarkable change although an amount of $70 billion had been received following 9/11 incidents in the United States. Pakistan still stood at number 124 in world education ranking whereas it was at number 135 in 2002, he added.

Through their call-attention notice, Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, Mrs Yasmeen Rahman, Mrs Samina Khalid Ghurki and Humair Hayat Rokhri questioned the purchase of lab equipment for Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad worth Rs160 million.

The minister said the Higher Education Commission had been set up by a dictator through an ordinance in 2002. It was made an autonomous body under Dr Attaur Rahman. The ministry of education, he added, defended its performance in parliament.

The minister expressed scepticism about the performance of the HEC which, he said, received Rs33 billion funds a year as against Rs3.9 billion seven years back.

The movers of the call-attention notice criticised the education policy and stressed the need for paying more attention to primary and higher secondary education, instead of higher education which, they said, was meant only for the affluent.

On a question over an increase in the prices of locally manufactured cars, Minister for Industries Syed Naveed Qamar said that since the manufacturing industry was deregulated and prices of its products were fixed by the market, the government had no control on their prices.

Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas Qamaruz Zaman Kaira informed the house that the people affected by the construction of the Bhasha-Diamir dam would be compensated.