GILGIT, Pakistan: The Minister of State Education and Professional Training Engineer Muhammad Baligh Ur Rehman presided over the 8th Inter Provincial Education Ministers’ Conference at Gilgit on Tuesday.
In his address in the opening session as the Chief Guest, the minister said that education is the most important thing according to our religion.
The minister said that although education is a devolved subject now and we respect our constitutional decisions but a platform of facilitation was needed and therefore we have started this Conference to learn from each other, help and share good practices of each other.
Baligh Ur Rehman said that whatever we decide in this Conference is decided through the consensus, if any of the province don’t agree to any point then house does not approve that particular agenda.
The state minister said that if we want to be a one nation in true spirits then we need to have a minimum curriculum for all. Therefore we established the National curriculum council to work on national curriculum framework, he said.
The minister said that we approve big things at this platform for example Minimum Education standards have been finalized in 7th Inter Provincial Education Ministers’ Conference. He said that revision of National education policy 2009 has been overseen by this auspicious forum.
He said that we believe that access to education should not be compromised. He said that things are improving, dropout rate has reduced, missing facilities have improved, commitment to sustainable development goals etc.
Baligh Ur Rehamn said that as Quaid e Azam said that education must be a matter of life and death for us, said the minister. Therefore we are working on national education policy, and provinces have increased their respective education budgets. Moreover he said that we are going to establish Model teachers training institute in Islamabad on the demand of the provinces.
We have introduced Nazra Quran for class 1st to 5th and its translation from class 6th to class 12th and we would request the provinces to replicate it in their provinces as well, requested the minister.
He said that we all need to learn, tolerate and respect the viewpoints of others, emphasized the minister. Character building is very important component of any education system. Talking about the recent developments Minister of state said that we are trying our level best to bring all maddrassas to mainstream education system in Pakistan. And for that we have reached to a consensus with Ittehad e Tanzeem ul madaris of 5 wafaqs (sects) to introduce the syllabus of federal board in maddrassas. He further added that it is our collective responsibility to educate each and every child of this nation.
We are also working on vocational and technical education, and for that we have established 2 pilot schools in Islamabad, said the minister. 12 new schools will be opened soon, 2 of which will be established in Gilgit Baltistan. We are also going to start Best teacher’s award from Oct 2016.
Minister of state thanked Agha Khan foundation and its likes for their contributions towards the education in Gilgit Baltistan.
In the end, Minister of State thanked the Government of Gilgit Baltistan for their hospitality and warm welcome.
