Category: Education

LAHORE – Three-day event ‘A World of Tomorrow’ organized by Beacon house School System in Lahore attracted a large number of people on its second day on Saturday.

Students, teachers, intellectuals, politicians and literary figures came in droves on the second day to participate in different panel discussions held in Royal Palm Golf and Country Club.

On the second day, a session was held with former foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar. In the session, Khar highlighted the issues of Pakistan’s relations with other countries and also narrated her personal experience while in office as FM.

“We received enormous pressure from the United States to hand over Dr Shakil Afridi to the US in the aftermath of the killing of Osama Bin Laden but our government did not budge from its initial stance of not releasing Afridi,” Khar said, while counting the success of her ministry.

Talking about US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Khar said that Hillary strongly believes in the ‘American Exceptionalism’ and that she would win the election. In response to a question, she said that the incumbent government of Pakistan had fallen into the trap of matching the ‘Modi mantra’ and the government must avoid following Modi so as to maintain peace in the region.

“There are two types of foreign policy; pro-active and reactive foreign policies. Reactive foreign policy refers to the policy of tit-for-tat and Pakistan should avoid reactive policy especially in the context of India,” Khar said.

In another session titled ‘Wo Subha Kabhi Tou Aye Gi’, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal said that dreams could be materialised only through commitment and strong determination. He said that stability and continuity were essential for ensuring development in the country, adding that the country had a lot of potential.

“We want peaceful relations with all the neighbouring countries as the progress is not possible in war,” the minister added. Iqbal said the world of tomorrow will be different from the world of yesterday and today. The minister said that despite of all the challenges, the present government had doubled the budget of higher education in three years.

To another query, he said strengthening of institutions was significant to overcome corruption, adding that vibrant and robust civil society was necessary for ensuring transparency.

As many as 60 interactive sessions will be held in three days in which more than 160 speakers will participate. The issues related to art, music, politics and education will come under discussion in these sessions.

Quality education needed for progress

LAHORE = The inaugural session of the first international educational conference hosted by the Institute of Education, Lahore College for Women University was held here on Wednesday.

The conference addressed the theme of “Building Knowledge Competencies for Sustainable Development in Asia: Achieving the Goals of Life Long Learning”.

According to a press release issued on Wednesday, leading national and international educationists from USA, UK and Malaysia, distinguished guests, along with 400 participants were present on this occasion for deliberations on these conference areas and discussions on its major themes.

Speaking at the opening session of the conference Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Uzma Quraishi extended a warm welcome to the distinguished guests and students on the occasion and congratulated the organisers for holding this important conference. She emphasised that to achieve sustainable development, we need to change the way we think and act.

This requires quality education and learning for sustainable development at all levels and in all social contexts, she said.

The conference intends to achieve the objectives of identifying certain areas of knowledge convergences which are conducive for making United Nation’s identified knowledge competencies work in the Asian context and beyond. It addresses three key areas upholding the cause of UN’s call for an inclusive and equitable quality education for sustainable development. These themes among others were the topics of the keynote speakers Prof Dr Saeeda Shah, University of Leicester, UK, Prof Dr Muhammad Memon, Agha Khan University, Prof Dr Munawar Sultana Mirza, Leads University, Pakistan and Dr Naim Syed, Associate Assistant Vice President at University of Connecticut Health and Janet Syed, at the opening session of the three day conference.

Other notable guests present on the occasion were Punjab Governor Rafiq Rajwana, Kamran Lashari, Director General, Walled City Lahore Authority, Merrimack College, USA, Dr Victoria Showunmi, University College London, Dr Sazali Bin Yousoff, Director, Institute of Teacher Education Malaysia and Dr Siti Salina Binti Mustakim, Institute Aminuddin Baki, Ministry of Education, Malaysia.

Lahore: Punjab 2016 with Dr. Muhammad Aasim Yousaf, Chief Medical Officer, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre and Mr. Haroon Raheem, Education Advisor, Punjab, USAID/Pakistan, U.S. Agency for International Development. A total of 35 projects from Punjab have been selected to participate in the National Fair scheduled for later this year.  The winners from Sindh, Baluchistan, KPK, Islamabad, Gilgit and Punjab along with their selected projects will be competing for participation in the coveted International Science & Engineering Fair scheduled to be held in Los Angeles, California in May 2017.

Welsh university tuition fees will be pegged at £9,000 next year despite colleges in England being given the go-ahead to charge up to £9,250.

Students from Wales will be able to claim up to £4,954 in grants and borrow the rest, wherever they study.

The announcement comes ahead of the publication of the Diamond report into higher education and student finance.

One senior academic has warned that Welsh universities could become “second rate” if they could not increase fees.

Education Secretary Kirsty Williams said: “This decision gives certainty for those who want to go to university for the academic year 2017/18, giving people the option to study where they choose, including in England where tuition fees are set to increase.”

Currently, students from Wales pay the first £3,900 of their annual tuition fees, with the Welsh Government paying up to £5,100.

As well as the tuition fee grant and loans, Ms Williams announced a means-tested maintenance grant of up to £5,161.
‘Second rate’

She has argued that living costs are a bigger barrier than tuition fees to poorer students going to university.

The UK government linked its permission for higher fees at English universities to better teaching, with the new maximum of £9,250 possibly increasing by inflation in future years.

In August, Swansea University vice-chancellor Prof Richard Davies warned higher education in Wales risked becoming “second rate” if colleges could not increase their fees as in England.

Responding to Friday’s announcement, he claimed there had not been “enough time for the Welsh Government to look at this properly since the announcement in England”.

“I hope they find some way of allowing for inflation,” he added.

The National Union of Students president Fflur Elin welcomed the news.

She said: “We want to ensure that students from all backgrounds can access high quality courses. The cost of the courses should not be a barrier.”

Welsh Conservatives education spokesman, Darren Millar AM, said: “We welcome the move towards means-tested maintenance grants and the anchoring of tuition fee costs.”