Shafqat Mahmood against politics in education sector

• The government was trying to unite all provinces on one point of education as this sector should be free from politics.
• The viral diseases and expressed his confidence that it will play a key role in the prevention and treatment of viral disease in the country.

KARACHI: Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training, Shafqat Mahmood here on Wednesday called upon all stakeholders to play their role in turning education sector into free of politics with major focus on up-gradation of standard and quality of the courses and training offered to the children and youth of the country.

Inaugurating the National Institute of Virology at the Dr. Panjwani Center for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research (PCMD), University of Karachi, he said said the government was trying to unite all provinces on one point of education as this sector should be free from politics.

He pointed out that the government would steadily enforce a unified education system in the country to mitigate class differences between rich and poor classes.

The Minister for Education and Professional Training mentioned that the federal education ministry was working on many projects to enhance the quality of learning in all faculties and that the federal government has allocated Rs.59 billion for the higher the education sector.

The government was said to had taken major step towards introducing a uniform syllabus in the country.

With the regard to Virology Lab inaugurated by him, Shafqat Mahmood expressed his pleasure that a world class institution was focused towards understanding the causes of the viral diseases and expressed his confidence that it will play a key role in the prevention and treatment of viral disease in the country.

"Emergence of several viral diseases in the last two decades, such as Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Zika, Chikungunya, and Congo fever has challenged the existing healthcare system of the country," he said appreciating that the virology research center was the first of its type using state-of-the-art technologies conduct scientific investigation on viral and other diseases.

On the occasion Vice-Chancellor University of Karachi Prof. Dr. Khalid Mehmood Iraqi, Prof. Dr. Atta ur Rahman, Chairman of the Prime Ministers National Task Force on Science and Technology, Director ICCBS Prof. Dr. Muhammad Iqbal Choudhary, and Chairman H.E.J. Foundation Aziz Latif Jamal also expressed their views.

Prof. Atta ur Rahman said that significant investments worth billions of rupees were being made in a multitude of projects related to the industry, agriculture, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, industrial biotechnology, space sciences etc.

Prof. Khalid Mehmood Iraqi said that establishment of this world class institute was a key step forward towards the capacity building in the field of virology in Pakistan.

He pointed out that the building of the new institute was equipped with most modern tools, and facilities for frontier research in this important field of virology.