PR No. 54 PARLIAMENT SHOULD SET PRINCIPLES TO AVOID POLITICS ON MATTERS PERTAINING TO RELIGION, HEALTH& EDUCATION--MARRIYUM Islamabad: May 8, 2018

Ms. Marriyum Aurangzeb, Minister for Information and Broadcasting and convener of Parliamentary Task Force on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on Tuesday stressed that Parliament should set principles to avoid politics on religon ,health and education .Speaking in the meeting of Parliamentary task force on SDGs here she said that provincial task forces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhaw on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been working pro-actively in health and education sectors and prevention of fatal diseases. She said after the 18th Amendment SDGs secretariat and provincial task forces were best forums for highlighting social issues including health and education, malnutrition, water, sanitation, mother and child health etc. The minister said that there was need to give time to local government system to evolve and graduate to overcome its deficiencies. If the system is allowed to work without interruption it would become strong and this process of evolution was called democracy, she said. While appreciating the role of partners for provision of data on education and water and sanitation issues, she said that SDGs secretariat and partners have been providing data for legislation on relevant subjects. She said that the secretariat provided relevant data on social sector to members of parliament who embarked on foreign visits. During the briefing it was informed that there was need to take concerted measures to bring drop out students back to schools. Measures were also suggested for removal of the factors creating hurdles in promotion of equal education facilities among the new generation. The meeting was also given detailed briefings on the education financing with equity lens, water and sanitation issues. The meeting was informed that creation of Punjab Education Authorities was a good initiative and other provinces should also follow suit. The task force member Nafeesa Inayatullah said that transfer of teachers to far off areas creates some problems, which should be addressed. Zeb Jaffar stressed the need for collection of genuine data on drop out children due to malnutrition, and stunting. Aysha Syed said that in her constituency of Kalam and Bahrain all closed schools have been reopened as the KPK government has adopted the policy of recruitment of teachers at union council level and introduced bio-metric system of attendance which has helped improve the standard of eduction. Shehryar Afridi said that the objective of the Parliamentary Task was to promote Pakistaniat and all should join hands to overcome the challenges being faced by the motherland. He also proposed that the Task Force should have its own budget so that it can organize surprise visits to various parts of the country to ensure implementation of the SDGs targets. Musarrat Zeb said that Rs 100 million operation theater is being built in a hospital in Swat from SDGs funds and its ground breaking would be done next week. The SDG task force meeting adopted a unanimous resolution to strongly condemn the attack on Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal. The meeting was attended by MNAs Tahira Aurangzeb, Zeb Jaffar, Nafeesa Inayatullah Khattak, Musarrat Ahmed Zeb, Shehryar Afridi, Romina Khursheed Alam and Samina Mohiuddin Jamali. *****

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