ISLAMABAD: The Public Representatives from all the provinces and education experts at a National Conference on Education called for generating a national response to address the educational challenge in Pakistan.
The conference was organized by Institute of Social and Policy Sciences (I-SAPS), a national public policy research institute.
Qasim Suri, Deputy Speaker, National Assembly, while discussing the poor education indicators and magnitude of the challenge, stressed the need for a well-coordinated response to the challenge.
He stressed the federal government to act as a coordinating vector for charting a course for addressing the education needs. Suri appreciated the government for making education a priority in their reform agenda.
Riaz Fatyana, Chairman Standing Committee on Law and Convener Parliamentary Task Force on SDGs appreciated I-SAPS for organizing the national conference on the issue of education. He informed that Pakistan is lagging behind the SDG-4 targets and stressed the need for combined effort to achieve these. He was of the view that the efforts of the current government particularly for education reforms are praiseworthy and will soon show improvement in the education indicators.
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Kanwal Shauzab, Parliamentary Secretary for Planning Development, Reforms and Special Initiatives, Convener, National Caucus on Financing SDGs, while appreciating the organizers outlined the government efforts for achieving SDG-4 targets. She highlighted that the current regime has introduced exceptional reforms in the education sector and which will lead to substantial improvement in the education sector.
It was elucidated that the conference aims to initiate debate and explore the ways and means for synergizing Federal-Provincial interface for effectively meeting the obligations under Article 25-A and SDG-4.
Dr. Salman Humayun, Executive Director underscored that the desired response needs to address the challenge of developing minimum common standards, improving data structures, collecting regular data on various international commitments, students learning assessments, and coordination among the federating units.
Murad Raas, Provincial Education Minister, Punjab, expressed his views and said that holding of National Education Conference is a very pleasant occasion. Training programs should be introduced and a robust examination system should be introduced in order to improve the educational system, in addition to setting the curriculum in line with international standards. He also emphasized the need to create a consensus on a unified educational framework between the federal and the provinces.
He shared that by 2020 Punjab Education department will be fully digitized easing educational reforms.
Shafqat Mehmood, Federal Minister for Education, while addressing the National Conference appreciated the efforts made by I-SAPS and emphasized to create a national response for the emerging education challenges.
He assured that Federal ministry along with all the provincial sub-tiers will make their best efforts to implement the findings and recommendations from this conference. He also made an emphasis that there was a dire need for a national level educational discourse to mitigate the challenges at different levels.
Federal Minister also shared that federal government is trying its level best to create a synergy between provincial and federal education. Federal government is ready and keen to cope with education challenges and soon Government of Pakistan will be announcing a universal curriculum for primary education. Federal government is trying to bring madarassah students to main stream education system. He stressed that the role of federal government is essential when improving educational system.
People from different walks of life are participating in the conference.
Nargis Sultana, FOSI – Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Ibrahim, Jazz Pakistan , Javed Ahmed Malik, DRI, Pakistan, Umbreen Arif, Technical Advisor, Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, Government of Pakistan, also talked at the inauguration of the conference.
