President stresses promotion of analytical thinking

TAXILA (APP): President Dr Arif Alvi on Wednesday emphasized the promotion of analytical thinking and said the highly competitive world necessitated Pakistan to enhance access to education and enrollment in schools.

Addressing the first convocation of HITEC Institute of Medical Sciences, the president said Pakistan was faced with a crisis of 27 million out of school children. He said, comparatively, the ratio of children’s school enrollment in India and Bangladesh stood at 98-100 percent.

He told the gathering that through a dedicated focus on education and health sectors, Pakistan could excel within eight years, citing the case study of China.

The president, who earlier distributed medals and degrees among the graduates of medicine and dentistry, said the country could not afford the women giving up the career after getting higher education and called it a “tremendous wastage”.

However, he said it was incumbent upon the state to provide the women a safe working atmosphere as the institutions like Federal Ombudsman were already functioning for the purpose.

He said in Pakistan, only nine percent youngsters enroll for higher education which needed to be increased by introducing modern education tools like online education.

Citing nine percent prevalence of hepatitis and 40 percent stunting, the president said the country direly needed workforce to cope with the challenge.

He urged the new graduates to focus more on preventive care as Pakistan could not afford the curative treatment. Pakistan has already achieved remarkable success during the COVID pandemic by promoting preventive methods, he recalled.

Calling it a beautiful culture of Pakistan, President Alvi advised the youngsters to always remain thankful to their teachers and patents for their efforts to brighten their future.

He said obtaining the degree was just an opening of the door to knowledge as the new trends and innovations were being introduced in the medical field particularly after the artificial intelligence.

He predicted that within a span of ten years, the AI would enable the display of human thought within no time as tremendous knowledge already existed in the cloud technology.

He also adviaed the new graduates to never let greed overpower their humanity and that they should always be compassionate to their patients in accordance with Islamic as well as the cultural values.

Earlier, Principal of HITEC Institute of Medical Sciences Professor Major General (retd) Hamid Shafiq congratulated the students and their parents over the graduation.

He said that starting in 2016, the Instutute was counted among the A Grade medical colleges of the country.

He said the Institute had also obtained the ISO certification, providing high standard education to the students as well as the house job facility to them after the graduation.

Principal HITEC Dental College Dr Irfan Shah said that with the convocation, the seven years long efforts have come to the fruition.

He said the college was now a well established institute with certain distinctions including the top ranking by Pakistan Medical and Dental Council.

He said besides studies, the college was also actively engaged in the social welfare works by providing dentistry services to the people living in the suburbs.