ISLAMABAD — Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal called on Tuesday to strengthen the voice of civil society and everyday people in support of positive reforms, particularly in the education sector, to ensure that policies continue despite changes in the leadership of governments.
“Our civil society and citizens need to be given ownership of the reforms and the policies; if we can strengthen the voice of our citizens, they can likely ensure that if there is political change, they can use their voice to tell the new government that we want to follow this policy and it should not be thrown out,” he said while speaking at a two-day event titled “Decade of Learning” organized by the British High Commission Islamabad here.
Ahsan Iqbal recalled that he as a minister of planning had moved a Vision 2025 setting ambitious but achievable targets to be attained by 2025 but after the change of government, the new government has thrown the whole agenda out of the window.
He said the lack of stability and continuity of policies was one of the major challenges in Pakistan’s development process.
The minister said he was also in support of managing the education and health sectors are district level to promote professionalism in the sectors.
For this, he said each district should have a brilliant and highly professional person either from the government or from the private sector as a chief executive of the respective sectors.
He said this move would also develop a culture of competition among the districts.
“We are not poor in policy-making but the real challenge is implementation”, he said adding that lack of implementation of the policies and poor management system has led to poor performance in the public sectors.
Ahsan Iqbal said he also had asked the education minister to hold a national summit to discuss and propose curriculum reforms, measures to improve the exams system, and teachers.
Earlier, Talking to the media, Ahsan Iqbal has said political stability was imperative for prosperity.
He said the prevailing uncertainty in the country had a direct link with the economy and the people then had to pay the price of the political uncertainty suggesting the political issues should not be resolved by the Supreme Court.
The minister added the process of the census had been initiated in the country mentioning nobody was running away from the elections but there should be stability first.
He said the elections should be held under the new census while highlighting October 2023 as a suitable time for polls. He added there was no need for the dissolution of assemblies.
Mr Iqbal suggested the politicians to wait and let the process of census be completed.
