It has been planned to set up Punjab Assembly members’ caucus for effective protection of child-rights in the province. This caucus would be established and run through chief provincial commissioner for children of ombudsman office, and will be comprising of parliamentarians, having deep interest in wellbeing of the children. While evaluating different laws relevant to the protection of rights of the children, this caucus would work as a policy-platform to guide and strengthen the governmental efforts; as well as different stakeholders, to ensure that relevant laws are fully implemented. Similarly, members of this caucus will maintain liaison with the line-departments to help adopt holistic approach in policy-making.
This was decided in a meeting of stakeholders from public and private sector organizations including Chairman Punjab Education Foundation Engr. Qamar ul Islam Raja. Punjab’s chief commissioner for children Ms. Nasreen Farooq Ayub presided over the meeting and apprised the participants about proposed role of the parliamentarians’ caucus in providing conducive atmosphere to the children.
While talking about the importance of child-rights in the context of education, Chairman PEF Qamar ul Islam said that education strengthens the children with knowledge and forward-looking approach to excel in life. The whole society should come forward to ensure that no child is left behind. It is very important that the media, religious leaders, educationists and other stakeholders should sensitize the people about the strong role of the society in providing child-friendly atmosphere to the children for their composite growth.
Mr. Raja observed that today’s children are leaders of tomorrow; but in order to develop them as future-leaders, we should ensure that they have equal access to the basic right of education. It is commendable that Punjab Education Foundation has provided free schooling facilities to 21 lakh most-deserving children in 36 districts of the province. This has also helped in the eradication of child-labor, he said. The civil society should support the government in achieving target of 100 percent enrollment by 2018. In this regard, the second phase of education sector reforms program is aimed to improve the overall quality of education. In fact, Punjab government has prioritized the protection of the rights of the children through education-promotion, he concluded.
The meeting was also addressed by different MPAs, and Ehsan Ghani, Abdul Basit Khan, Syed Ali Gillani, Miss Shaheen Ateeq ur Rehman & others, who presented their suggestions about the proposed role of parliamentarians caucus.