LCCI Demands Bus System For All Schools

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Jan, 2017 ) : Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI) Wednesday hailed provision of buses to educational institutes in Federal capital city by Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif under PM Education Reforms Programme and termed it a great favour to students, the future of Pakistan.

There is a dire need to provide mass transit system to all schools. LCCI President Abdul Basit and Vice President Muhammad Nasir Hameed Khan said here, this step showed government's seriousness towards provision of all latest facilities and better education environment to students.

Hats off for present regime in general and Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif in particular for doing this as children were the future of Pakistan, they added. They said same measure should be taken by provincial governments as well, asserting that though Punjab government was doing a lot to promote education but still a lot yet to be done as a large part of society had no access to education or basic facilities at schools.

They suggested that federal government should take such initiatives for the students across the country, while provincial government should ensure provision of all necessities in schools. They said that education was to be force of development plan but expense on education sector had hardly ever crossed three per cent of GDP, which must be doubled and top agenda item.

LCCI President elaborated, "Pakistan has around 6.8 million out of school children with dearth of Primary schooling and enrollment. Student-teacher ratio is 40:1 as compared to Sri Lanka where 24 students have one teacher.

Sri Lanka has a literacy rate of around 99 per cent showing higher number of teachers a sign of preparedness for eradicating illiteracy. For 6.9 million students who have no teacher, we need to create 170,000 more jobs for teachers at current rate if we have to fully educate our children.

During the year 2030, our need will be over 263,000 new jobs of teachers for 10.5 million out of school children at primary level." He asserted that government needed to invest more in education sector and facilitate lower and middle classes students to create gigantic human resource, besides bringing in precious foreign exchange through their abilities.

LCCI office-bearers said that higher education must be more technical beside sending students abroad and spending foreign exchange on foreign education, local facilities in technical institutes must be enhanced. The Higher Education Commission must bring foreign teachers in technical areas to educate local students, they added.