LAHORE: The standard of any institution is measured on the basis of its contribution to research work, and research activities are at peak at Kinnaird College (KC), said KC Principle and former education and minority affairs caretaker minister Prof Dr Mira Phailbus.

Phailbus said that being a minister, she had observed that the graph of research had moved upward. She said that the students of KC, Lahore College for Women University, Lahore University of Management Science (LUMS), Forman Christian College University (FCCU) and Government College University (GCU) Lahore had been focusing on research activities.

The former caretaker minister said that the KC students had been conducting research work in various fields. She said that external examiners were amazed to see the standard of research of the students.

She said that around 204 KC students had graduated this year, and 68 of them had scored a 4 CGPA (cumulative grade point average). “The result shows that our students are doing a good job,” she said.

Speaking about her experience as a minister, she said that the caretaker government had done a lot for the education sector, but many issues in the primary education needed to be addressed. She said that a number of development projects were in progress in the education sector.

Phailbus said that the trend of imparting education to females had increased, and ratio of female students was more than double the ratio of male students. She said that the attendance of female students in villages was more than 80 percent. She said that the caretaker government had also distributed free books to female students at the primary level to invite more girls to study.

She said that schools for minorities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were playing an important role in improving the standard of education in the country. She said that denationalisation of the institutions for minorities was a good experience, as the condition of such institutions had improved so much that they were now among the best institutions of the country. She said that during her tenure as a minister, she had focused on promoting teachers and upgrading their scales. She stressed the need for hiring more teachers in schools and colleges. “All the development work and our efforts are useless if there is no satisfactory number of teachers at the institutes,” she added.

Phailbus said that the Higher Education Commission was doing a lot to upgrade the standard of higher education. “Teachers are now being sent abroad for further studies,” she said.

She said that foreign qualified teachers had been avoiding performing their services in Pakistan due to the recent terrorist activities, but now the situation was changing. She also requested Pakistani teachers living abroad to return and help educate Pakistani students on modern lines.