“Says AJK had emerged as the most literate region, having achieved 85% literacy rate all across Pakistan, underlines rapid growth in the region’s economy and effect of infrastructural development on economic growth, stresses the need for refining quality of education so that graduates get appropriate jobs in the emerging market”
Muzaffarabad: (Parliament Times) President of Azad Kashmir Sardar Masood Ahmed Khan has said that Azad Kashmir’s universities, colleges and schools are focusing on the quality of education after having achieved the targets on the quantity.
Khan made these remarks while speaking at a seminar on “Promotion of Student Success: Connect, Inspire, Transform” organized here by the Oxford University Press, which was attended by more than a hundred and fifty educationists and opinion leaders from all over Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. Some ten schools from Azad Kashmir participated in the seminar.
President Masood Khan thanked Ameena Saiyid, Chairperson and Managing Director of Oxford University Press, for bringing Azad Kashmir into the educational mainstream and bringing top educationists to Muzaffarabad.
The AJK President said that Azad Kashmir had emerged as the most literate region in the whole of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. “This is a matter of pride for us that, despite severe resource constraints, Azad Kashmir had outcompeted all other regions in educational score, enrollment , learning, retention, and gender scores”, he said. The President emphasized that after having achieved an impressive literacy rate of more than 85 percent, highest in Pakistan, now Azad Kashmir was refining the quality of education so that graduates get appropriate jobs in the emerging market.
President Masood said that Azad Kashmir’s economy was expanding and its educational institutions were investing in the areas of critical thinking, innovative approaches and modern educational technologies. “This would be possible only through learning and replication of good teaching practices”, he said adding that these were the very themes that were being discussed by the OUP seminar participants.
The President highlighted that because of rapid growth in the Azad Kashmir economy, there will be demand for professionals in the sectors of infrastructure, hydropower, tourism, extractive industry (precious stones and minerals), agriculture and manufacturing.
Sardar Masood Khan underlined that there was a need to enhance an interface and compatibility between the market and academic institutions so that qualified professionals were prepared for emerging jobs and businesses.
He vowed that in coming years Azad Kashmir will not only become self-sufficient and indeed prosperous but would contribute to the economy of Pakistan by using its surplus capacity. He invited the participants of the seminar to project Azad Kashmir as a land of opportunity.
