Pakistan ensuring free compulsory education : Baligh-ur-Rehman

ISLAMABAD, Oct 28 (APP): Minister of State for Education and
Professional Training, Muhammad Baligh Ur Rehman on Wednesday
said Pakistan has ensured free compulsory education and established
centers for research to demonstrate effective practices.
However, a lot more needs to be done, he said this while
addressing a Conference on Early Childhood Development and
Sustainable Development Goals held in Beijing (SDGs).
The main objectives of the Conference were to engage policy
makers to develop strategies and policies for effective
implementation of suitable development goal by 2030, share knowledge
and noteworthy practices on child friendly environment, strengthen
partnerships for ECD among various stakeholders.
These will ensure that all girls and boys have access to
quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education
so that they are ready for primary education.
The participants of the Conference were guest of Honor UN
Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, Director of the Earth Institute,
Jeffery D. Sachs, Chair of the Board of Directors, Global
partnership for Education (Ex PM of Australia), Julia Gillard,
Ministers, Parliamentarians of Pakistan, China, India,
Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
“Today, we live in a rapidly changing world. A world full of
opportunities as well as new and complex challenges of poverty,
climatic changes, extremism and intolerance,” the Minister said and
added achieving SDGs as a whole would not be possible unless we
provide equitable opportunities to all children globally.
According to a message received here, the Minister said
this would take a lot more than just providing good healthcare and
education.
“To achieve the ambitious human centric SDG goals, we will
have to come closer, we will have to start cooperating with each
other in an unprecedented manner, allow more restraint and
tolerance, increase the level of understanding each other’s point of
views. Let us all pledge here that we will make this world a better
place and will achieve SDGs,” Baligh-ur-Rehman said.
The Minister thanked Madam Liu Yandong (Vice Premier of
People’s Republic of China) for her presence, an emblematic of the
great importance that China is attaching to human development and
poverty reduction.
He also thanked China Development Research Foundation (CDRF)
and Asia Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC) for
providing an opportunity for very important conference on poverty
reduction and child development in China, an exceptional learning
experience for all.
While SDGs have been adopted just recently, it is the right
time to learn from each other’s best practices to maximize
opportunities and respond to challenges and to shape up and refine
our vision, our strategies and plans, said the Minister.
Madam Vice Premier’s vision on ECED provides us all with new
vigor to focus on these goals with absolute clarity.
China has done an incredible job in lifting people out of
poverty in great numbers and improving human conditions.

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