Digital libraries will be established in big parks of every district : Rana Mashood

Lahore: Provincial Minister for Education Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan has said that Punjab government, under the e-learning project, will establish digital libraries in big parks of every district of the province. He said that one library each will be set up in 20 parks under the first phase of this pilot project. He said that four libraries will be established in Lahore division while 16 libraries in remaining eight administrative divisions of the province. He said that under the second phase, digital libraries will be set up in two big parks of every district headquarters of Punjab.

He disclosed this while addressing a seminar on “World Books & Copy Rights Day” at Quaid-e-Azam Library Bagh-e-Jinnah Lahore today. President Pakistan Libraries Association & Chief Librarian Punjab University Lahore Chaudhry Muhammad Hanif, President Punjab Librarian Association Dr. Muhammad Ramzan, Director General Libraries Punjab Dr. Zaheer Ahmed Babar, Director Public Instruction Islam Siddiq and office-bearers of Punjab University Library and Information Science Alumni Association (PULISAA) attended the seminar.

Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan said that the dream of bringing the nation at par with developed nations cannot be materialized without promoting book-reading habit. He said that the engineers and doctors who do not know the use of information technology are considered “uneducated” at international level.

That is why, Chief Minister Punjab has announced that government will provide laptop to every student getting 60 percent marks and if 100 percent students get more than 60 percent marks, free laptops would be provided to 100 percent students, he added.

He told that two lakh and 50 thousand books have been made interactive by digitalizing them under e-learning project. He said that at present computer labs exist in 4700 government schools and the number of computer labs will reach to 6000 in the schools of the province at the end of this financial year. He said that computer lab facility will be provided in all elementary schools of Punjab in next financial year.

Rana Mashhood Ahmed also announced to launch “Smart Board” pilot project from Mianwali and introduce E-Tutor Progamme from next academic session. He said that digital material consisting of audio courses will be sent in government schools for capacity building of teachers and students and facility of digital box will be available in libraries of 3500 schools of the province this year. He announced that new libraries will be set up in 625 government colleges of the province.