'Intellectual poverty worst form of poverty'

Intellectual poverty is worst form of poverty as it leads nations towards deprivation, said Vice Chancellor of University of Faisalabad Professor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan addressing the participants of international symposium on sustainable rural development and food security as chief guest here in new senate hall on Saturday.
He further said that only 5% population between the age of 18-28 years has access to higher education with lion's share of Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) students but it offers distance learning courses to degree seekers. Poverty, inequality and food security are persistent problems being faced by humanity in this current era, he said.
Dr Khan said that Pakistan was ranked 125th out of 169 countries in the human development index ranking for 2010 and its current HDI value (0.490) places us in the medium human development category. He said although Pakistan has progressed during the last 50 years in per acre agricultural productivity, per capita income and social sector development but population and challenges have multiplied. He added that when they translate the productivity with per unit of water, labour and energy cost, access to primary, higher education and other means, a lot needed to be done to meet daunting challenges.
He said that UAF has a very mature system and multi-disciplinary curriculum. "We are very proud of our curriculum as it is now translated into policy of numerous national and international organisations," he added. Dr Khan expressed his concerns over the existence of 24 universities in federal capital saying out of 70 public sector universities of the country, all institutions of higher learning were established in big cities which restrict the access and affordability of higher education to a larger segment of population which resides in rural and far flung areas of the country.
Dr Khan urged the students to get benefit from the offers come forth by Swiss organisations in R&D sector and mutual research endeavours. Earlier delivering the keynote address executive director Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, Dr Abdil Qaiyum Suleri said that state of food security in Pakistan has deteriorated since 2003 as half of the population of the country doesn't have access to sufficient food.
He described the confronting challenges of the country with 6 Fs (Food, fiscal, fuel, functional democracy, frontiers and fragility of climate coupled with flood devastation, which affected millions of lives in the country. Dr Suleri revealed that after spending millions of dollars on its warfare, the think tank has reached on the conclusion that US must invest on some sort of centre of excellence in Pakistan to reap the benefits of its long term relations with Pakistan.
He linked the global security with individual, social, national, and regional stability and well-being adding that when states fail to provide food, health, education, and justice to its habitants state within states emerge, and people look for alternative means.
Dr Suleri was of the view that availability of food, education and other necessities are not sufficient until and unless they make them available and acceptable with socio-economic, cultural norms. He said that Balochistan is worst in food insecurity, as out of 29 districts 23 were found severely vulnerable.
Earlier, Dr Urs Gieser of Zurich University Switzerland said that knowledge is essential for sustainable development. He emphasised for making efforts to sustain the productivity tools contribute to the development as structure and social contacts significant role in the development.
Dr Gieser said that inequality always lead to aggression as in farming, the people actively operate the land and make labour untiringly used not to have any control on the productivity which is the worst form of discrepancies. Dr Tanvir Ali, Director Division of Education and Extension, Dr Sher Muhammad and Dr Babar Shehbaz also spoke on the occasion.