Khalid Sibtain
Islamabad, (Parliament Times) : President Dr. Arif Alvi said through the combination of education, intellect, and morality, the youth could change the fate of the country.
He said Pakistan needed leadership and proper use of intellect more than the solutions, which he believed the youth of the country was fully capable of playing this role.
Addressing the convocation of Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), the president said that Chinese development was made based on education and health, and Pakistan also needed to follow the Chinese model to achieve the goals of rapid development.
The President said that resources alone do not develop the countries, but human resources and the right decisions change the fate of nations.
Calling the successful graduates of the university as elite of the country, the president said they were elite because they had the privilege to secure a graduate degree in a country where 44% or more than 26 million children were still out of school. While comparing with the region, he said all the regional countries had a 98% ratio of school-going children.
“To accommodate all out-of-school children, the government will have to build 50,000 more schools which is not an easy task keeping in view the resource availability in the country,” he added.
He pointed out that around 300,000 mosques in the country could be utilized to educate the out of school children.
President Alvi regretted that the developed world was claiming to be the champion of democracy and humanity had lost the sense of sympathy with humankind.
He said the world was now running on vested interests, as zero sympathies were being shown by the West amid the atrocities being done on innocent people of Gaza.
He said Pakistan was hoping to get the Kashmir issue resolved by using the United Nations platform but despite passing over 70 years, the issue was still unresolved.
“If the exploitation of wealth ends in the world and every person gets its due right, the killing of the people will automatically be stopped,” the president remarked.
He advised the successful graduates of the university to continue their struggle to seek knowledge in their practical lives.
He also asked the women graduates not to spoil their education while sitting at home after getting married.
He said in today’s era of technology, women could easily manage their jobs and family work.
The president said due to timely and prudent strategies of the government, Pakistan was declared as the world’s 5th-best performance country during COVID-19.
Recognizing the leadership’s decision to establish the AIOU in the 1970s, the president said the university was playing a key role in imparting education to the people, especially in remote areas of the country.
Earlier, the president also conferred degrees and medals to the successful students.
Vice Chancellor, of AIOU, Dr Nasir Mehmood said until now, some 5 million students had been graduated from the university.
He said the university was providing free education to the transgenders, jail inmates, and children of the martyrs.