LAHORE: A meeting of federal and Punjab government officials on Wednesday discussed reforms in school, college and university, technical and vocational institutions to promote knowledge economy and innovation and technology driven development.

Prime minister’s Task Force on Technology Driven Knowledge Economy Vice-Chairman Dr. Attaur Rahman and Punjab Minister for Higher Education Yasir Humayun Sarfaraz chaired the meeting at the Lahore Knowledge Park Company (LKPC) office. It was attended by Higher Education Department (HED) Secretary Momin Agha, LKPC and Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board chairman Akram Khan and others.

The minister vowed to bring uniformity in the courses being offered at various levels with unique course and transferable credit hours.

The participants discussed how the LKPC could boost the knowledge economy of Punjab and Pakistan. The objectives of the LKPC were reviewed and supported by the participants for developing an ecosystem of knowledge-based economy.

Dr Rahman said they discussed different educational issues in the meeting on the direction of Prime Minister Imran Khan to revamp education in the country.

He said they had discussed introducing distance learning programmes in school, college and university levels because it was free of cost. He said the Virtual University was on board to run the distance learning programme with world renowned universities.

He said that another point of the discussion was to promote technical and vocational education as there were around 1,500 technical and vocational institutes in Pakistan.

He said as these institutes were not producing quality professionals, the government wanted to upgrade these institutions and had also contacted TEVTA and Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood.

Mr Rehman said during the previous government, the LKPC signed memorandum of understanding with three world class universities of Italy to be setup in Pakistan. It was aimed to improve the quality of education in universities of Pakistan.

He said the University of Austen started its working in Hazara, adding that they were working to promote agriculture and bio-technologies in Pakistan.

He said Pakistan’s economy was focused on natural resources and they wanted to upgrade resource related economy.

He said Pakistan was left behind for not promoting resource and knowledge based economy as only 0.6 percent of Pakistan’s economy was knowledge based and they wanted to take it to 20 percent.

He said the federal government was going to allocate around Rs30 billion for the programmes and projects to be implemented in science and technology to foster innovation, entrepreneurship and knowledge driven economy.

The HED secretary said the LKPC may act as secretariat of all the initiatives to be taken in Punjab related to incubation, entrepreneurship, centers of excellence, linking knowledge and enhancing the quality of research and higher education.

It was also discussed that the level of current institutions be raised to higher standards. However, establishment of new institutions in collaboration with world class top-ranked universities may also be considered.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2019