Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that the dream of rapid progress and prosperity can only be achieved by imparting modern knowledge and providing latest technology to the youth. This implies harnessing the energy of young people for national development, a task for which Mian Shahbaz, as Chief Minister, is the pointman. He made these remarks while talking to a delegation of brilliant students who called on him in Murree on Saturday. This dream is something which he has by no means neglected, moving mainly through education, which is after all the best point at which to have influence on young people. Mian Shahbaz has presided over a number of measures which should yield positive results. Prominent among them are the founding and spread of Danish Schools, the distribution of laptop computers, the Green Card Travel scheme and the founding of the Arfa Karim Information Technology University. While the Danish schools will ensure that the entire younger generation, including the children of the poor, gets to play their due role in national development, the provision of laptops and the founding of an IT University will bring the younger generation closer to information technology, which is the wave of the future, and which will dominate the workplace of the future.

However, while all these steps are more than worthwhile, for they help fulfill one of the basic functions of government by providing the kind of education that will equip the citizen of the future with the skills needed in the workplace of the future, they seem directed more at the tertiary tier, of higher education, rather than at the primary and secondary tiers at which the majority of students will remain. When they emerge into the workplace, they must have the skills which will make them welcomed there by prospective employers.
For that, there must be a greater emphasis than at present on providing schools missing facilities, which might be as basic as furniture or teachers. It might be best if one district, or as many as the provincial government has the capacity for, was taken up, and the missing facilities of its schools completely filled, keeping in mind the vision of the Chief Minister, especially the importance of information technology in the time to come. Of the many functions of government, the provision of education is probably the most important. Thus it must be done right, so that the power of youth can truly be harnessed.