PEF schools set up in backward areas

LAHORE
Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) Chairman Engineer Qamar-ul-Islam Raja has said educationally backward areas are being identified through the use of information and communication technologies in the province.
According to a handout, while addressing the launching ceremony of “Education Monitor” organised by a society at a local hotel on Tuesday, he said new schools had been set up in these areas as a result of which free quality education had been made available to resource-less children, especially girls near their homes.
Children from the age of 5 to 16 years should be enrolled till 2018 in Punjab and poverty and backwardness should not remain a hurdle in study of any children, PEF chairman said.
He said data of all schools of Punjab Education Foundation had been stored under GIS mapping so that selection of new schools could become easy. Educationally backward areas would also be identified, he said, adding PEF technology friendly policy had resulted in provision of quality education through partner schools.
PEF Managing Director Dr Aneela Salman and representative of DFID Dr Javed Malik said Punjab Education Foundation was the best model of public private partnership. Abbas Rasheed, Jamil Najam, Dr Faisal Bari, Dr Salman Humayun and Qaiser Rasheed spoke.
workshop: A three-day national workshop on “Molecular Diagnostics” started at University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) on Tuesday.
The workshop, being organised by UVAS Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology and Quality Operation Lab and University Diagnostics Lab in collaboration with the Penn State and United States Department of Agriculture Research Service (USDA), was inaugurated by UVAS Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Talat Naseer Pasha.
Prof Dr Khushi Muhammad, Prof Dr Masood Rabbani, Prof Dr Sarwar Khan, Prof Dr Kamran Ashraf, Dr Waseem Shahzad and a large number of participants came from across Pakistan and many UVAS faculty members were also present.
Prof Dr Talat Naseer Pasha termed the training workshop necessary for knowledge sharing, advancement and skills development saying the workshop would also promote the usage of molecular diagnostic techniques in life sciences research. Earlier, Prof Dr Masood Rabbani, highlighting objectives of the workshop, said it was a capacity building event to enhance the scientific skills of the participants in commonly used and important techniques in molecular diagnostics.