PESHAWAR: The vice-chancellors of various universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Tuesday declared to launch a national movement to press the government to allocate at least four percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) for education.
They urged the parliamentarians and policy-makers to utilise energies and resources for making four percent allocation as mandatory for education, which they said was a panacea to all the problems of the country.
The vice-chancellors of 15 public sector universities and heads of degree awarding institutions met at the University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Peshawar, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Higher Education Qazi Mohammad Asad on the occasion of the visit of Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Javed Laghari and executive director HEC Sohail H Naqvi to the provincial metropolis.
Vice-chancellor UET, Peshawar, Syed Imtiaz Gilani in his inaugural remarks said that the vice chancellors were now very clear that unless and until education was promoted, nothing would improve in the country.
He said the vice-chancellors were now open to demand adequate investment in education. Global average investment in education is five percent of GDP while Pakistan is spending only 1.7 percent which is even not enough to bear the recurring expenditures of universities, he added.
Javed Laghari stressed the need for promotion of quality education. He said that only education was a solution to all the problems faced by the country. Every problem from air crash to railway’s bankruptcy and floods was being faced due to lack of quality education, he said.
He said they would focus attention of formation of similar forums in other provinces to have better policy regarding education.Laghari lauded the performance of the UET. He said that the return rate of PhD scholars sent by UET abroad was 100 percent and they were making great contribution in promotion of research culture in the province.
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