Labourers', workers' children: 'comprehensive programme to impart education under way'

Provincial Minister for Labour, Haji Ehsaan-ud-Din Qureshi has said that government is implementing a comprehensive programme for providing modern educational as well as state of the art healthcare facilities to the children of labourers and workers.
He said that Daanish School Programme of Chief Minister Punjab will not only help in this direction but will also open up new avenues of progress and development. He said that setting up of computer labs in thousands of schools, establishment of centres of excellence, provision of facilities in 10,000 schools besides a number of steps has been taken in this regard.
He announced that all government schools will be given the status of English medium schools in 2011 while Punjab government is also lunching a vigorous campaign for primary enrolment this year. He said that government is also awarding scholarships to thousands of talented students for studying in the country and abroad through the endowment fund of rupees six billion.
The minister said government is giving top priority to provision of modern healthcare facilities to all segments of the society, especially labourers. He said that the main objective of the labour department is to provide free of cost comprehensive healthcare facilities to the workers and their family members, adding that more than 6,005,265 workers were provided healthcare facilities at a cost of 3,387 million rupees during last fiscal year.
He informed that four new medical colleges would be opened up in the province whereas two medical colleges, each in Lahore and Faisalabad, would be launched by the labour department. He further said that in order to provide specialised treatment/diagnostic facilities near the workplace of labourers, labour department has established satellite clinics at Phoolnagar, Jaranwala, Hasan Abdal etc.