British Minister of State for International Development Desmond Angus Swayne called on Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif here on Friday. Matters regarding promotion of cooperation in education, health, skill development and other sectors were discussed at the meeting. The Chief Minister said Britain was an important trade partner of Pakistan, adding various programmes in education, health and skill development sectors were running successfully in Punjab with the cooperation of Department for International Development (DFID) of UK.
He said Punjab government wanted to further promote cooperation with DFID and technical assistance especially in skill development would be welcomed. He said Punjab government was taking revolutionary steps for empowerment of youth. He said besides enrollment in schools, special attention was also being paid to teachers' training for the promotion of quality education and the achievement of the targets fixed with regard to quality education till 2017-18 would be ensured.
He said the programme for the improvement of public health facilities with the cooperation of DFID was yielding positive results. He said due to cooperation between Punjab Skill Development Company and DFID, thousands of youth had been imparted skills in the province during the last few years; however there was need for speedy progress in that regard.
He said DFID should consider provision of technical assistance for producing quality skilled manpower and teachers' training. He assured that Punjab government would provide all out cooperation for that purpose. The Chief Minister said that a target had been fixed to make two million youth skilful in Punjab during next three years and special attention was being paid to the quality training of the youth. Referring to the measures taken for women empowerment, the CM said Punjab government had taken effective steps for the protection of rights of women and necessary legislation had been undertaken for that purpose. He further said that special centres were being set up for redressing grievances of the women subjected to violence and all out facilities regarding provision of justice would be provided to them at those centres under one-roof.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2015

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