Living up to his four-year practice, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif distributed prizes worth Rs 5.5 million among position holders in Matriculation examination at a ceremony held at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat at Lahore on Tuesday. What deserves even greater appreciation is the fact that the recipients of prizes were drawn from all the four provinces, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan and not just from Punjab. In all 35,000 scholarships of Rs 10 billion are already being offered from the Punjab Educational Endowment Fund to the poor but talented students to enable them to continue further studies. This should serve as a model to other provincial governments. No one can disagree with the Chief Minister’s statement that quality education is a fundamental right of every child and it is the government’s duty to equip the young generation with knowledge and quality education. He cited the example of Danish Schools, set up in the most backward areas where poor students were being imparted education at par with other high-quality educational institutions. Punjab took another good step by selecting position holders on merit and sending them to prestigious educational institutions around the world on study tours. Such exposure would greatly help them learn from the experience of developed world. Quality education could transform a generation into a workforce fit to face the challenges of today.

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