Musharraf stresses on 'live and let live'

Lahore: President General Pervez Musharraf has said peace could be promoted in the world by resolving all the outstanding disputes of international importance by adopting the policy of "live and let live".

In his presidential address on the occasion of the 5th Convocation of the Government College University in Lahore yesterday, he said peace could be brought on the basis of equality, not by imposing ideas on others.

"We must ameliorate the lot of the Muslim Ummah [community] which has majority of the world's poor population," he said.

Musharraf called for socio-economic uplift and emancipation of the Muslim Ummah.

Strong country

However, he said, Pakistan must come first as a strong country to lend strength to the entire Muslim world.

Terming 2007 general elections of critical significance for the country, he said its results would determine the future course of country, and hoped that people would vote for moderate and progressive candidates.

About issues confronting Pakistan, including those of extremism, provincial autonomy, construction of big dams and Balochistan strife, the president said the previous governments swept the problems under the carpet for short-term gains.

"This tendency resulted in long-term losses to the country," he said and added that the present government was endeavouring to tackle these issues for long term gains for the country.

Musharraf said that Pakistan was presently spending 2.7 per cent of its total GDP on education sector against 18-19 per cent in some developing countries.

He said that enhancing the funding of education sector to the level of 4 per cent of GDP would mean the allocation of another Rs150 billion (Dh9.3 billion).

He said there was need for removing the dichotomy between Urdu and English languages as a medium of instruction. "Urdu is our national language while English is an international language; we have to focus on both," he added.

He said the government was presently engaged in the improvement of curricula and syllabi of education at different levels.

Geography

Underscoring the need for the promotion of the discipline of geography, he said learning of geography was a must for the promotion of political and economic relations between different countries.

He said promotion of technical education could be instrumental in bringing down the incidence of poverty and unemployment in the country.

The president said there were great job opportunities in the fields of telecom and computer sciences.

Musharraf said by the year 2012, Pakistan would have hundreds of graduates with degrees from foreign engineering universities while studying in their homeland.

"This will help save a lot of foreign exchange presently being incurred on the education of youth in the foreign universities," he said.

He said the establishment of universities in Pakistan would also be of benefit for the countries providing assistance.