President Dr Arif Alvi has said that education, health and women empowerment are the most important factors for robust growth of a society. He said this during a visit to the department of special needs in the University of Management and Technology in Lahore. First lady Samina Alvi also accompanied him.

Giving an example of China, Mr Alvi said Beijing has made enormous progress through improving its education and health sectors. “It is very unfortunate that there are more than 20 million children out of school in Pakistan, and it is the need of the hour to enrol them,” he underlined. He said it is highly important to promote the concept of inclusion in the society. "If we look around, almost every family has a child who is deprived of one of the five basic senses," he observed.

Arif Alvi said there is a need to change attitudes of the society towards differently-abled persons and jobs should be created to match their abilities. " No nation can make progress without ensuring inclusiveness in its society." The president said only 9% of students went to universities after intermediate and some 18% to 20% students made it up to the intermediate level, which was depressing.

“With rapid advancement in technology, the world is changing as there are a lot of mobile applications which are very helpful for people with disabilities,” he said. He further said Pakistan has a lot of potential, adding it is of utmost importance for the country not to deviate from its priorities. Arif Alvi said that inflation is the biggest challenge and there is dire need to control it in the larger public interest. Later, President Alvi and the first lady witnessed different projects of the differently-abled students and also interacted with them. The students also briefed the president about their research work.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk