Development projects : First Spanish school

Science & Technology Ministry re-starts 27 uplift projects
Islamabad, Sep 17: The Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) has started 27 development projects again that had been put on hold amid the credit crunch in financial year 2008-09.

Allocation for 147 development projects had been pledged in the last financial year out of which 109 were ongoing and 38 were new projects. The total cost of all the projects was 2,951.108 million and the government had earmarked 461.850 million for the financial year of 2008-09.

But due to financial constraints a number of major projects had been shelved. Many of the projects had been abandoned midway because of lack of funds thus "high impact" projects ended in chaos without proper coordination, causing a massive wastage of funds and public anger.

Some of them had been initiated in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and half of the work was completed on them. The project of 'Production of Allergy Vaccines-PMRC' worth 12.475 million was also in progress and nearly Rs 5 million had been spent on it.

A project of 400 foreign Ph.D scholarships of worth Rs 50 million for the strengthening of human resource development in the Ministry of Science and Technology had also been deferred which was aimed at the development of sound high-tech manpower in emerging fields of science and technology organisations.

'Establishment of Super Computing Research and Education Centre, NUST', 'Research & Development of Fish Skin into Value Added Leather PCSIR', Establishment of Health Safety and Security Division in PCSIR Labourites Complex Karachi', ' Development of Indigenous Secure Digital Voice Data and Fax Encryptor, Ministry of Defence, Islamabad' were among the major projects which had been dropped from PSDP in the last financial year.

Currently the ministry has been running 140 development projects in the financial year 2009-10 and Rs 3,265.377 million have been earmarked for these projects. from Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) in the last financial year.

Currently the ministry has been running 140 development projects in the financial year 2009-10 and Rs 3265.377 million has been earmarked for these projects. The nation

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Islamabad to have first Spanish school
Islamabad: Federal capital will have the first Spanish school. Classes will start in the school from September 26. "The school offers courses according to needs of the students," said a press release.

Qualified native speakers with international teaching experience will conduct classes. The courses include Spanish for business, general and coffee-talks on cultural issues.

The method of teaching is stated to be through 'communicative approach'. "It means talking and talking in Spanish," the statement added.

The classes can be held at the embassy of Argentina, in-company customized courses or even 'at your place with family or friends'.

Spanish is the official language in 21 countries. Today, over 300 million people speak Spanish as a native language, making it the world's second most spoken language in terms of native speakers and in international communication giving Islamabad residents and young people a new avenue of learning and perhaps having fun with a new language.

Popularity of Spanish language is growing as a second or third language in a number of countries which chiefly use it as the primary language. Dawn

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Education policy overambitious
Islamabad: National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) Director (Education) Iqbal ur Rahman has termed the recently announced education policy overambitious.

He made it clear that the government would not be able to achieve the target of allocating 7% of GDP to education sector till 2015. "There is a confusion among people's minds as a week before the announcement of the National Education Policy (NEP), the prime minister himself declared that the government would allocate 4 per cent of GDP to education sector," he added.

He said that the draft of the new education policy was prepared by the previous government in 2005. "The present government has only added two chapters in the policy. The government of Shaukat Aziz had also made tall claims of allocating 4 per cent of GDP to education sector, but the task was not accomplished till the end of his government," he added.

Iqbal ur Rehman said though the new policy has been made attractive, however, the problem of private institutions fleecing students has not been included in the agenda of the policy.

He lauded the government step of separating academician and administrative cadres. "By doing so, the teaching staff has been restrained to join higher and well paid posts in the administrative cadre.

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Qiraat competition at IMCB
Islamabad: An inter-collegiate Qira'at competition was held at Islamabad Model College for Boys (IMCB), F-11/3, where the participants from different colleges of Islamabad recited the holy verses from 'Sura-e-Tauba' and mesmerised the audience with their sweet voices and perfect delivery.

Jawad Nazar of IMCB I-8/3 secured 1st position in the competition while Hamza Masood of Punjab College of Commerce, Amman Khan of Islamabad College for Boys (ICB) G-6/3 and Asad Riaz of Fazaia Inter College secured 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions respectively.

The panel of the judges included Qari Muhammad Saleem Naeemi, IMCG, F-6/2, Qari Muhammad Tajdar, IMCB, F-7/3 and Professor Aftab Ahmad, ICB, G-6/3 while the duties of stage secretary were performed by Qari Faiz-ul-Hasssan Alvi.

On the occasion chief guest Qari Dr Muhammad Younas highlighted the importance of the Holy Qura'an and urged the audience to learn the Holy Qura'an under the supervision of some learned person, expert in 'Tajweed'.

In the end Professor Muhammad Ahmad and Qari Dr Muhammad Younas, gave away the prizes to the position holders. The news

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