KARACHI, May 21: The Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Prof Dr Atta-ur-Rehman, has called for increasing investment in human resource development as well as in education sector.

He was addressing the participants of a training workshop for the health care professional here on Tuesday.

The minister was of the view that the real wealth of any country was its human resource and the quality of education.

“The path to progress is education especially in science and technology,” he remarked.

Prof Atta maintained that it was important to invest in education and human resource development.

He also drew a comparison of the Muslim states vis-a-vis the Western countries and said that Austria with a population equivalent to that of Lahore has a GDP of 208 billion dollars, whereas none of the 57 Islamic countries is able to reach that figure.

He said that after his becoming minister, the budget for science and technology had been increased from a mere Rs120 million to Rs6 billion.

Prof Atta stated that in Pakistan only 50 to 60 PhDs in science were being produced annually which was something pathetic as compared to a figure of 4,000 to 5,000 in Britain alone and stressed that we will have to enhance the PhD output in the country.

The minister said 320 supervisors had been identified in the country and each will be given three new PhD students and thus 1,000 students could be enrolled for the PhD programme in the country.

Prof Atta said that a sum of Rs40 million had also been allocated for strengthening science faculties at universities in the country.—APP