Minister Incharge for Science and Technology, Professor Dr Atta-ur-Rahman on Thursday said science education for women, was must to break the poverty cycle.
He said this while inaugurating the second workshop of the Sub Regional Network of Non-Formal Scientific Education and Popularisation of Science here on Thursday.
The four-day regional workshop titled "Empowering adolescent girls to become the agents of social transformation in South Asia" is jointly organised by Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF), Unesco, and Isesco and is being attended by representatives of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Dr Atta said government of Pakistan with the assistance of Unesco was launching some major projects to increase literacy rate among women and enhance their financial status through popularisation of science in rural areas.
The minister said science component activities of the projects included the conceptualisation and development of various programmes for providing technical and basic formal and non-formal science education to adolescent girls.
A programme had been launched to create awareness about the use of scientific methods to solve the problems experienced by the rural communities including water conservation, research and development of new energy sources, maximising agricultural productivity, protecting bio-diversity, environmental protection, disease prevention and public health issues such as AIDS and Malaria, he said.
The minister said that among 71% (625 millions) of the world's illiterate population, the majority of comprised on women.
It was important to design cross-sectoral and cross-boundary preventive programme, which would empower them to lead a decent life.
Ms Renee Clair, representative for Unesco Paris described the aims and objectives of the seminar and said adolescent girls were the most effective agent of the change in the society.
She said Unesco had launched this project to increase avenues of their education and training to enable them to catalyse the socio-economic development of their countries.
Three technical sessions of the workshop held on Thursday were addressed by Parvaiz Saleh, Pakistan, Dr Ms. Mahtab S. Bamji, India, Dr Vikram Vyas, India, Dr Suman K. Shakya, Nepal, Ms Momtaz, Bangladesh, Ali Baksh, Pakistan, Ms Anil Bordia, India, Abdul Rauf, Pakistan, Farhat Bano Rajpar, Pakistan Science Foundation, Dr Shubhangi Sharma, India, Mani Dahal, Nepal, Dr Hafeez U Khan, Pakistan, Ms Shaheen Akter Chaudhry, Bangladesh, Ms Aisha Malik, Pakistan, Dr Muhammad Ibrahim, Bangladesh and Arif Malik, Pakistan.
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