Education is top priority of government : Shafqat Mahmood

Education is top priority of government : Shafqat Mahmood
APP101-22 ISLAMABAD: October 22 - Federal Minister for Education, Shafqat Mahmood in meeting with Ms. Ellen Van Kalmthout, Chief Education UNICEF Pakistan and Edward Davis, Senior Education Adviser DFID. APP

ISLAMABAD, Oct 22 (APP):Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood here on Monday held a meeting with Chief Education UNICEF Pakistan Ellen Van Kalmthout and Senior Education Adviser DFID, Edward Davis.
Shafqat Mahmood said that Education was the top priority of the government. Its main targets were to bring the 25 million out of school children to schools, introducing a uniform education system and curriculum, providing quality education and skill development.
“A lot of work has been done on the education policy and it will be soon introduced and it will help in achieving these targets”, he added.
The minister informed the delegation that the federal education ministry and its attached departments would also be organized in such a way that would be reflective of the priorities in education sector.
“Once our Education Policy is formulated we will also seek technical and financial assistance from UNICEF, DFID and other such organizations working for promotion of education in Pakistan.”
Ellen Van Kalmthout and Edward Davis said that enrollment of the out of school children was their organization’s top most priority and it would provide both technical and financial support to the government of Pakistan in that regard.
“We will provide technical support to Pakistan by providing a report that calculates the cost of inaction on the enrollment of the out of school children and their adverse impacts on Pakistani Society and Economy, the cost of enrollment of these children, ways to target the children and allocation of funds for this purpose”, the foreign delegates added.
Shafqat Mahmood and the visiting delegation agreed on keeping regular contact and coordination for addressing the challenges in education sector in Pakistan.

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