The Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Ghulam Sarwar Khan on Saturday stressed the need to introduce petroleum and chemical engineering programmes in technical education institutions. Speaking at a prize distribution ceremony at Government College of Technology in Rawalpindi, he said the country needs technical education institutions.
He said Muslims are lagging behind in educational field and one reason behind that is we have been paying less attention towards technical education. "No government has given importance to education; 2.5 million children are not enrolled in schools. In the world, students of technical education are given priority," he added.
He said brain drain is another big challenge for a country like Pakistan, which needs to be addressed on war footing, adding the need of the hour is that we must fix some bottlenecks which force the youth to take refuge abroad in pursuit of a better life style.
"The PTI government is paying attention to human resource development and technical education, which will go a long way in fixing these challenges," he added.
The minister said his party government strongly believes in giving equal educational opportunity to both girls and boys. "In our sit-in [in 2014], women played important role. It was the longest sit-in in the history of the country, in which the women from all over the world played their due role as it was a struggle for the people of this country. A Canadian female teacher even sent us donations of a million rupees, which shows the trust of our people on us", he added.
He further added that girls who fail to get admissions in medical colleges should opt for nursing. In other countries, nursing is given a lot of importance. "Our daughters are more responsible and honest than our sons but in our society daughters are not given preference", he added.
He further added country is going through an economic crisis, but even then, he reiterated that the issues faced by the said college would be resolved on priority basis.
Explaining the scope of petroleum engineering, he said there is vast opportunity in this filed, as those who have completed their education in this field are working all over the country and abroad on very good packages.
He proposed the college administration to start petroleum and chemical engineering classes which will go a long way in development of the country as today's world needed modern and scientific education.
He also announced to establish a Polytechnic College at Chakri, the area which is the home constituency of arch political rival Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.