LAHORE: Punjab Education Minister Rana Mashhood announced on Wednesday that the government would set up digital libraries in 20 parks in the province under an E-Learning Project.In the first phase of this project, the minister said, four digital libraries would be set up in Lahore division parks, and 16 in eight other divisions. In the second phase, he said, the digital libraries would be set up in two major parks of respective district headquarters.

The minister said this at a seminar organised in connection with the World Books and Copyrights Day organised by the Pakistan Library Association and the Pakistan Librarian Welfare Organisation at Quaid-i-Azam Library.

He said the Punjab government had digitised some 250,000 books and made them interactive in the e-Learning project. He said computer labs were also available in 4,700 government high schools.

By the end of the year, the government would raise the number of computer labs to 6,000. In the next financial year, he said, the computer labs would also be set up in all elementary schools in the province. He also announced the launch of the smart board project from Mianwali and an E-Tutor programme from the next academic session.

Referring to the digital needs of the modern world, the education minister said even engineers and doctors were considered illiterate, who were not comfortable with the information and communication technology tools. Similarly, he added, the children must learn information technology tools to become literate in real sense of the term.

For this sole reason, he said, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had announced that the government would provide laptop to each student getting 60 percent of marks in their examinations. He also announced setting up of new libraries in 625 government colleges in the province.

Mr Khan said the Muslims ruled until they had biggest libraries in Baghdad, which were later destroyed by opponent forces. He said the European nations collected books from the world over and started progressing.

During the British rule, the minister said, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan launched a campaign to educate Muslims. Similarly, he said, the Quaid-i-Azam launched a movement and highlighted Muslims’ identity. He said Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had revived Jinnah’s vision to promote the cause of education.

PLA Punjab president Dr Ramzan gave a briefing about the Interactive Live Books Project.