President for right mix of education in social sciences, marketable skills

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Friday urged the universities and educational institutions to deliberate on creating a curriculum of the right mix of social sciences and market-oriented disciplines and subjects to equip the students with social sciences and marketable skills to enable them to get gainful employment and also pursue their interest in writing, literature other disciplines of social sciences.

The president expressed these views during a meeting with a high-level delegation of the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL), led by the chairman (PAL), Dr Yousaf Khushk, and members of the Board of Governors of PAL, at Aiwan-e-Sadr in Islamabad.

During the meeting, Arif Alvi appreciated the PAL for promoting arts and literature in society and underlined the need to increase its subscribers and beneficiaries by increasing the reach of PAL’s literary products by pursuing a cogent, effective and efficient marketing strategy.

He said that digitalisation could help spread and enlarge the reach of PAL’s literary products and services through web-based and cell phone-based applications which coupled with a marketing plan would help enhance its reach.

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The president appreciated the PAL for its efforts in preserving different regional languages of Pakistan, especially those which were neglected and were facing extinction. “Every language is a reservoir of distinctive knowledge, wisdom and heritage which needs to be preserved effectively and made available to the current and future generations as well as for the betterment of society,” he said.

President Alvi said that the PAL should double up its efforts to increase its networking by engaging relevant stakeholders, both local and international, to benefit from their experiences, and benchmark best practices and innovation to improve its efficacy and efficiency.

He also advised the PAL to ensure judicious and prudent spending of its budget to achieve its core aims and objective.

The PAL chairman informed the meeting that PAL payid monthly honoraria to indigenous writers and poets and bereaved families of deceased writers, who were facing hardships or were in economic distress. He added that 1000 families (living writers/bereaved families of deceased writers) were benefitting from the scheme. He further informed that the Academy also maintained a library to provide necessary reference material to research scholars, poets, writers and students of literature and more than 30,000 books and journals were available in the Academy’s Library at the Head Office.

PAL is an autonomous body which administers and coordinates all government systems for the promotion of Pakistani languages, literature and the welfare of the writers’ community in the country, besides producing literary periodicals in Urdu, English and other Pakistani languages, and recommending recipients for various literary awards and distinctions.