Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Hamza Shahbaz Sharif on Tuesday said that Pakistan would have been a peaceful and developed state, if US 10 billion dollars wasted on war-on-terror were spent on education. While addressing the laptop distribution ceremony among 3,482 eligible Government College University (GCU) students here on Tuesday, Hamza said youths were 65 percent of the country's population and without including them in the journey of development, Pakistan could not make progress.
He said PML-N was striving for equipping the youth with knowledge, so that "our future builders could realise dreams of Quaid-e-Azam and Dr Allama Iqbal." Hamza said the laptops were being given to the youth only on merit and those students who could not get laptops this time would be given laptops in the next phase.
He said the laptops would play a basic role in implementing the educational vision of Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif. The PML-N leader further said he was just 19 when his political rivals put him behind the bars. "That was the time when I resolved to bring a meaningful change in the lives of voiceless masses of Pakistan who are never paid any heed," he said.
Hamza looked forward the students enrolled in colleges and universities of Pakistan to join hands with him to serve masses by upgrading education, health and civic facilities in the remote areas of the province. He said that 0.2 million engineers, scientists and doctors produced by the universities and colleges of Pakistan every year were the true leaders of the nation who could guide us out of the quagmire pessimism, economic and social decline. He also attributed his academic advancement to the exemplary grooming afforded to the students in the four walls of GCU.
Recalling his admission at London School of Economics, he quoted the British Professor as saying that "the Ravians are as good as the best students of the world." GCU Vice-chancellor Professor Dr Muhammad Khaleeq-ur-Rahman said on the occasion that only IT-led education could bring silent, positive and peaceful 'change' in Pakistan which everybody was demanding for. According to him, Pakistan is engulfed by multi fierce crises of colossal magnitude, but fortunately the Punjab government had decided to address the root cause of all those problems i.e. lack of quality education.