Musharraf wants to go down fighting

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf may be counting his days in office but wants to go down fighting.

“He won’t resign and will defend himself”, said a senior official at the Presidency on Sunday night. But the political pundits continue to believe he will have to quit.

“If he doesn’t resign, it will be one more mistake (by him). He knows, the government has enough numbers to vote him out in case of impeachment,” a political commentator said.

For a successful impeachment, 295 members of the National Assembly and the Senate must vote against the President and the ruling parties claim to have support of over 300 members.

The government on Sunday finalised the charge sheet against President Musharraf which will be forwarded to the leaders of the coalition for a final approval on Monday.

Talking to media after a meeting of the coalition partners, information minister Sherry Rehman said that impeachment motion would be tabled in the National Assembly on Tuesday and added that Mr Musharraf could resign according to Article 44 of the Constitution before being impeached.

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Vocational courses in government schools soon

Students will soon be able to opt for vocational education as a full-fledged stream after Class X in government schools. The Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry is in the final stages of putting together a project proposal to start vocational education in +2 offering over 150 trades in more than 10,000 government schools. Once implemented, students will be able to choose two vocational subjects along with a language under the scheme, which is proposed to be executed on Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis.

The Rs 5,070-crore proposal aims to bring to school the in-demand courses associated with the sunrise sectors like aviation, hospitality, banking and medical fields ranging from air hostess/cabin crew training to cookery courses, front office training, nursing, accounting skills and career skills required at departmental stores to entrepreneurial training among other trades. The ministry also plans to set up a separate board on the lines of CBSE to hold examinations and take overall charge of vocational education.

“The scheme will be launched in collaboration with private players and we are in talks with banks, hospitals, aviation companies and so on already. The private sector that we will tie up with for these courses will also help absorb some of the students and recruit them. The rationale is to get school children career-oriented as many of them drop out and do not go for higher education either due to low marks in the existing streams or family necessities/pressure to earn or take up a trade. With these courses priming them on a job-oriented field, there is a better chance they will study further to specialise in that field or even land a better job,” said a senior official.

The project proposal is pending approval from Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC), and once cleared it will go to the Cabinet for final implementation.

While in 1988, the ministry had launched a scheme on vocational education in some 10,000 schools, it was a failure with poor infrastructure at schools, lack of specialised teachers/trainers and a general lack of interest. This time, the ministry wants to make no mistakes and has conducted exhaustive surveys and studied the popular vocational education courses offered in schools in Germany and Australia before devising their own plan. They have also ensured that new and relevant subjects are included to reflect the current professional demands.

The scheme is proposed to be launched in 10,000 schools that will develop additional infrastructure for such courses with the help of private players who will also train students. The government will reimburse the private concern for admitting these students in the course.

“Some 15 lakh students per annum are expected to benefit from the new scheme. As far as addition to school infrastructure is concerned, we will only need to add 2-3 rooms in each school for these activities. Each school will also be given a grant for the salary of specialised teachers for these courses and for infrastructure upgradation. We will also slowly try to bring in the new scheme to all schools, even those where the 1988 scheme is still running,” added the official.

The government plans to take up vocational education on a “mission mode” in the 11th plan period to cover 20,000 schools and reach out to 25 lakh students by 2011-12. At present only 5 per cent of the population is able to receive skill training through the formal system.