Federal Minister for Interior Ahsan Iqbal has said the prosperity and development without education was impossible and great responsibilities rest on universities to impart quality education to students besides focusing on their character building. He was addressing a function at Roos Keppel Hall, Islamia College Peshawar (ICP) in connection with 142nd birth anniversary of Father of the Nation, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah on Monday.
The minister said our problems cannot be addressed at civil secretariats but would be addressed by developing our educational institutions and universities besides provision of quality education to the students with main focus on research and innovations in the academia. He stressed on elimination of extremism, prejudice and sectarianism from the society to make the country abode for all the Pakistanis. He said these social evils could be eliminated through education and stressed the need for joint struggle by all.
The minister said Pakistan was on its way to become an economic Asian Tiger due to coherent and vibrant economic policies of the government. "Our government keeping in view the importance of higher education has raised the higher education budget from Rs 13 billion to Rs 35 billion and has the plan to take it up to Rs 50 billion in the coming years," he said.
Ahsan Iqbal said that Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah considered education as a prerequisite for economic prosperity and development of the country. He said Quaid-e-Azam had achieved Pakistan through peaceful struggle and his visit to ICP on several occasions reflected his love for education.
Whenever Jinnah visited KP (former known as NWFP) in 1936, 1945 and 1948 he visited ICP to acknowledge its students' great role during Pakistan Movement. His love for the college could be judged from his will written on May 30, 1939 in Bombay in which he had declared Islamia College Peshawar, the Muslim University Aligarh and Sindh Madrassatul Islam, Karachi, as among the inheritors of his property.
KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra said Fata University has been made functional and classes were started there as it was the old demand of Fata people. He said Fata University will have campus in every tribal agency. The function was also addressed by HEC Chairman Professor Dr Mukhtair Ahmed. He said women folk constituted 48 percent of the total enrollment of educational institutions across the country which is a matter of pleasure and great satisfaction.
Quaid had declared youth as the builders of the nation and defined their role in the national development, he said. Vice Chancellor ICP University Professor Dr Habib Ahmed presented the welcome address.