Key to Socio-economic Development.

We are now fortu nate to have an Oxford educated Prime Minister who is battling against all odds to get rid of the corrupt mafia that has dominated this country for decades and plundered it at will. Indeed, we are at the threshold of what could be a new and glorious era of socio-economic development. The way forward must be focused in a few key fields, as we must not spread the national development strategy too thin, because of limited national resources. The top priority for this country must be education, science, technology and innovation. Pakistan's real wealth lies in the 100 million youth below the age of 20. The Prime Minister is committed to unleash this huge creative potential through massive programs in education, science, technology and innovation, and we should now see a huge increase in financial allocations to these sectors in the coming financial year. An important step in this direction is the integration of our education system. This requires the modification of the 18th Amendment so that education becomes a Federal subject. Primary and secondary education can then be brought under one platform through the formation of a Primary and Secondary Education Commission, on the pattern of the Higher Education Commission.

The entire school education system should be revamped with one National Examination Board, one national examination, and a centralized national selection process for all teachers across Pakistan. We have been responsible for the fragmentation of our Society by having different systems of education, creating elite schools for the rich and government schools for others. The Madrassa system should also undergo major reforms with the teaching of sciences and technologies. In this connection one also needs to improve college level education by making it mandatory for college teachers to be also active researchers with PhD as a minimum qualification. The programmes in HEC should be realigned and focused on the development of high quality faculty. This can be done through sending at least 10,000 of our brightest students to top universities each year. We have witnessed the deterioration of education standards through mushrooming of universities without adequate attention of availability of faculty. This must be reversed.

The second major area of thrust should be in the field of information technology. The export of billions of dollars of IT exports does not require huge capital intensive and expensive industries to be...