ISLAMABAD:10 February: The federal capital is a model city but when it is compared with other metropolises of the country, the quality of education especially in the schools being run by the Federal Directorate of Education does not match the capital’s standards, said Prime Minister’s Task Force on Islamabad Chairman, Faisal Sakhi Butt.

“The real challenge for Pakistan’s education system is to bridge widening divide between the digital literate students and those who are totally deprived of such facilities,” he said addressing the stage performances on “Harnessing Global Diversity” organised by Root School System at Pak-China Friendship Centre on Thursday.

The colourful event was marked with the thrilling performance of the students. He stressed the need of understanding the strange reality of Pakistan’s education system that is facing a serious form of digital divide. “On one hand, teachers are working with ‘digital literate’ students with their lives anchored into the Internet and multimedia devices. But on the other, a majority of students and teachers have no access to these tools and technologies,” he noted. Butt said majority of schools have failed to produce ‘digitally literate’ students, consequently, a large number of such students are unable to avail the opportunities available in today’s knowledge-based economies.

The Task Force chairman said the most serious challenge to our education system is to produce such students who are capable of using available tools and technologies in an online collaborative, research-based environment for research, analysis, synthesis, evaluating and innovations.

He said the challenges of global diversity call for a high-tech training of future generation by providing them opportunities to cope with modern changes. He said such training would enable youth to cope with modern trends of ethnicity, gender, race, class and spiritual belief on the basis of equality. “The global diversity demands the commitment to recognise and appreciate variety of characteristics that makes individuals unique in an atmosphere that promotes individual and collective achievements,” the task force chairman said. He said it is really a challenge to change our way of thinking to help improve our system, institutions and policies. “We need a vision to honour the commitments and challenges of interconnected world,” Faisal Butt advised.

Butt also called upon the management of the private school systems to improve the quality of education in government-run schools, especially in the areas of human resource development through better teachers training mechanism. “We are seeking suggestions and deliberating on the ways and means through which the standards of education in these government schools could be enhanced in line with the needs of the challenges of 21st century”. He assured that the task force would play its role to resolve the longstanding issues of the private schools with allotment of adequate land for establishment of campuses in the city.

The chairman also lauded the services being provided by Roots School System in pioneering quality education. Butt administered oath to the members of the student council and also paid tribute to the management of the Roots School System.Daily Times.