President Dr Arif Alvi has urged the students to persistently continue their quest for knowledge by remaining intellectually humble, developing critical and logical thinking, and gaining marketable skills to achieve academic and professional excellence.
The President made these remarks while talking to the students of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) who achieved top positions in the Matriculation exams, at Aiwan-e-Sadr, today. Chief Secretary of Gilgit-Baltistan, Mr Mohyuddin Ahmad Wani, and senior officials of the GB government attended the meeting.
Addressing the participants, the President said that persistence and hard work as well as developing critical thinking skills were the bedrock for success in academic and professional life. He added that the youth should have confidence in their abilities to achieve success and should continue to increase their knowledge and competency to achieve gainful careers.
He advised the students to seek Almighty Allah’s blessing for opening their hearts and minds for receiving knowledge and information, gaining effective and convincing communication and analytical skills and the ability to achieve targets and goals which were beneficial to them and to the entire society.
While expressing his concern over lower female retention rates in the medical profession, the President said that women made up almost 70% to 80% of the total students enrolled in the professional institutes, whereas only 20 % of them enter the job market which was quite low and worrisome. He said that there should be counselling at all levels for female students and their families on regular basis to give them the confidence and assurance that women can pursue their careers without any fear or intimidation.
The President advised the students to take advantage of online sources of knowledge and information to continuously update their knowledge for remaining abreast with the latest developments as well as for competing with other students of other countries, seek admissions in reputed institutions, win scholarships and secure jobs in the international markets. He said that despite the shortcomings of our education system, Pakistani students were capable of competing with their fellow students from developed countries due to their exceptional intellect, unmatched hard work and desire to seek knowledge.
He highlighted the crucial role of the educational institutions to produce quality and skilful human resource which was direly needed for fast-track socio-economic uplift of the country and advised the students to seek employment in business, trade and commerce preferably within the country, as their knowledge and skills were needed for the progress and development of the country.
He said that Gilgit-Baltistan had tremendous natural resources which needed to be explored by the trained human resource in relevant disciplines.
He also called upon the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan to take all possible steps to bring out-of-school children into the school system and take all measures to reduce dropout rates.
Chief Secretary of Gilgit-Baltistan, Mr Mohyuddin Ahmad Wani, apprised the meeting about the steps taken by the GB Government for the promotion of education, the establishment of computer labs in existing schools and bringing the out-of-school children into the education system.
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