The government formally adopted 'O' and 'A' level system by introducing International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) in public sector educational institution in the federal capital. Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf launched the IGCSE/O and A level in the Islamabad Model College for Boys.
The Prime Minister also inaugurated yellow bus service comprising 185 vehicles to provide pick and drop facility to students in the federal capital. Raja Pervez Ashraf also inaugurated a lever transplant and cardiac centre at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS).
Later, inaugurating O and A level classes, the Prime Minster said that advanced economies were dependent on education and the country needed to determine the nature and substance of education "we need to provide and develop". He said that there is a need to align the country's educational policies with the demand of the market and industry. More than anything else, he said that the country's educational institutions needed to foster a culture of research, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.
The Prime Minister also promised to provide resources for education and announced a million-rupee grant for the establishment of a library and setting up a computer laboratory. He said that no nation "can make progress in today's world and achieve socio-economic development without making investment in health and education". "We are living in a world, which is undergoing transformation," he said adding that shifts were taking place in global economic and political structures.
According to him, investment in human resource development "is not a privilege, but an imperative if we have to achieve a respectable place in the comity of nations". "I inaugurated a state-of-the-art Cardiac and Organ Transplant Centres at PIMS. With the operationalisation of these Centres, the people of the federal capital would have access to better and improved health services," said Raja Pervez Ashraf. Minister for Capital Administration Development Nazar Muhammad Gondal also spoke on the occasion.