islamabad - Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Baligh-ur-Rehman said that education was fundamental to establishment of lasting peace and development.

The minister was addressing a 2-day international conference on ‘Role of Muslims in Contemporary Age’ jointly organised by University of Lahore, International Universities Council and International Union of Muslim Scholars at Islamabad Club on Tuesday.

Heads of a number of universities, academicians and senior scholars from Muslim countries are participating in the conference.

The minister said that government of Pakistan was fully focused on achieving universal literacy goals in the country and also meeting the national goal set for higher education. He said that Muslims were facing challenges and terrorism was one of the challenges. Pakistan played a lead role against terrorism and succeeded in rolling back terrorism and bringing peace, he claimed.

The minister said that it was time for Muslim countries to put their resources towards achieving the cherished goal of peace, harmony, development and security in the world. The Muslim countries will also have to link up with the larger world to accomplish the common goals and develop capacity for the purpose, he stressed.

Baligh said that Muslims would have to focus on education and equip themselves with modern technologies and skills. He said that we would have to inculcate in our students the habit of reading to make them life-long learners. He said that we need to focus on character building of our students so that they could be able to differentiate between the right and wrong.

The minister said that the present government was focusing on promotion of quality education in the country and had enhanced funding for education sector.

He hoped that the gathering of scholars, academicians, diplomats, and ulema would come up with a way forward and suggest actionable strategy on how the Muslims should position themselves in the present networked and fast-moving world.