Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Rana Tanveer Hussain has directed the authorities concerned to ensure the timely completion of ongoing projects under the Pakistan National Commission for UNESCO (PNCU), WealthPK reports. He issued the directives during a briefing given to him by senior officials of the education ministry on PNCU, said a press release.

The minister was informed about the ongoing projects including the UNESCO emergency funding programme, finalised with the government of Gilgit-Baltistan for rehabilitation of damaged schools in Diamer district; Malala Funds, a trust for girls' right to education programme in Pakistan; rehabilitation of street children through football; training of non-formal basic education community schoolteachers; and Wash Programme for creating awareness about cleanliness among schoolchildren.

Pakistan joined UNESCO in 1949 and the country has been a member of its executive board since 1951. PNCU is leading numerous projects, which include the UNESCO associated schools project network and tangible and intangible cultural heritage of Pakistan on the UNESCO World Heritage list and ICESCO list.

The minister was informed about the successful projects undertaken by PNCU, which include capacity building workshop for schoolteachers on climate change, education through inquiry-based science education (IBSE), pedagogy at Sukkur IBA, University, poverty alleviation through health improvement of rural female involved in cotton picking at the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), promoting adult literacy through ICT and distance learning at National Commission for Human Development, strengthening of PNCU by developing e-office and capacity building of PNCU staff through NITB, PNCU, and capacity building in science and technology at COMSAT, Islamabad.

The minister said that all the vacant posts in the organisation should be filled on an urgent basis so that it could work at full capacity. He said that the organisation needs to work proactively to deliver, according to the press release received by WealthPK.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk