ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday said that the government was committed to bring economic stability and continuity in its policies as it was the only way forward for prosperity.
"We need political stability and continuity in democratic system as all the developed nations progressed through continuity in their policies", he said addressing the Vice-Chancellor Committee meeting, organised by Higher Education Commission, here.
Ahsan Iqbal said the development of the country and human resource were top priorities of the present government.
"We will continue this policy for the betterment of the people," he said and added that the government had launched the Vision 2025 declaring education and human resource development as top priorities.
He said, the aim of the programme was to transform Pakistan into an economically strong and prosperous country.
Ahsan Iqbal said that under Vision 2010, the PML-N government forecast that Pakistan would require 25,000 MW electricity but the road map for energy need under the vision was not implemented and discontinued, as a result, the country was facing worst type of load shedding today.
He said, the government would go for mixed-energy projects and initiate substitute power projects in hydro-electric, coal, wind, solar and thermal power to get rid of dependency on furnace oil to provide cheap energy to the consumers. The Minister said that only one part of Vision 2010 was implemented by the then chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) Dr Prof Attar-ur-Rehman and PhD programme was continued which helped infuse new life to the universities in the country.
Ahsan Iqbal said if Vision 2025 was implemented and continued, the country would get rid of the problem of load shedding before year 2018.
He said that Pakistan needed linking with global economy for wide range economic and industrial benefits.
The Minister said that the government had provided required funds to the HEC for the qualitative improvement of the education in the country.
"We give full financial assistance to the institutions according to their need for promotion of higher education in the country", he added.
He said that the government initiated Rs. 10 billion endowment fund for scholarships to the needy students, Rs. 1 billion technology and research fund for PHDs and also financed a project for 500 top high school students to provide them better opportunities for the promotion of science and modern technology.
Later addressing the "Tenth E-9 Ministerial Review Meeting" here, Ahsan Iqbal stressed the need to adopt modern innovation and skills to meet the challenges of modern world in the field of science and technology.
Ahsan Iqbal said that the government focused on people related development projects to facilitate and benefit the masses.
He said "We are focusing on quality education and capacity building of the teachers."
The Minister said that the government had initiated education projects like skills (vocational training) university, reformation of all education boards in the country and making national curriculum for equity and equality in our education system.
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