LAHORE: (Saturday, May 6, 2023): Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Rana Tanveer Hussain has said that everyone should play their role to bring differently abled people into the national stream. He was addressing the Electric Wheelchairs distribution ceremony under the Prime Minister's scheme at Punjab University Institute of Education & Research’s Waheed Shaeed Hall. On this occasion, PU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Khalid Mahmood, Higher Education Commission's Director General Ayesha Ikram, Director Institute of Education & Research Dr Abdul Qayyum Chaudhry, vice chancellors of various universities and others were present. In his address, Rana Tanveer said that society and government have become conscious to understand the motivation, emotions, importance and aspirations of people with special abilities. He said that steps must be taken to build ramps for differently abled persons in all government universities. He said that the government will allocate more funds for electric wheelchairs. He said that whenever we got the opportunity to serve the people, under the guidance of Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif, we launched a number of schemes for the youth including laptop scheme and scholarship programs for the youth. He said that we have eliminated load shedding of electricity, constructed 1700 km of motorways and highways. He said that Pakistan has come out of the crisis and people will see its effects soon. The federal minister said that the promotion of vocational education in the country was need of the hour. He said that in order to improve the quality of education in the universities, the government was building an institution for training of teachers. He said that the TIMES ranking was not reliable and HEC should start ranking the universities by itself. He said that 6 channels for distance education have been launched keeping in mind the new methods of education in the era of COVID epidemic.

Prof Dr Khalid Mahmood said that certain people of the society are endowed with other abilities. He said that special people face problems regarding mobility for education. He thanked Prime Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif and Federal Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain for making efforts to provide facilities to the differently abled persons. He said that we were facilitating the transportation of special people in our buildings. He said that we wanted to make them a useful part of the society. Ayesha Ikram congratulated the differently abled persons for crossing all the hurdles in the journey from school to university. She said that we should take the initiative to help each other. She said that 600 wheelchairs were ordered in this phase. Later electric wheelchairs were distributed to 37 persons.