Minister for Education and Profes-sional Training Shafqat Mahmood Wednesday inaugurated ‘School Meal Programme’ to provide lunch to students in the public sector primary educational insti-tutions of federal capital.
Under the initiative, the government has started providing lunch to 25000 students of 100 schools on daily basis.
The inauguration ceremony was also at-tended by the Dr. Muhammad Ali Shah, Vice Chancellor, Quaid-e-Azam University, Dr. Ghulam Ali Mallah, Secretary, IBCC, Dr. Ikram Ali Malik, DG Federal Director-ate of Education (FDE).
Speaking on the occasion, Shafqat Mah-mood said that food will be provided to students in government primary schools by ‘Allah Wale Trust’. The Minister thanked the private trust for helping the govern-ment in that regard.
“Such institutions are a beacon for us. We will take this program forward at the gov-ernment level as well,” he said.
“I had a meeting with the Director of UNI-CEF and i wish to take this programme at country level but there are problems due to lack of budget”, he said.
Poverty is among several other reasons due to which many children do not go to school, he added.
He went on saying that this is the first step in which 100 primary school children will be given food, while soon it will start in all the primary schools of Islamabad.
