LAHORE: Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has constituted district monitoring committees for the newly-established IT labs in high schools across Punjab.
Each committee comprises an elected representative in chair and district monitoring officer and district education officer as its members.
The committees have been entrusted the task to conduct surprise inspections of IT labs in their respective districts at least once a month. The committees will inspect equipment/furniture and fixtures like server, desktops, UPS, airconditioners and check that all systems, including N-computing, network and PTCL connectivity, are functional and is in working order.
They will also ensure that software — MS Window Server 2008, MS Office 2007 Professional, MS Forefront Anti-Virus — were installed on all computers and functioning properly. They will also check that internet connection was available in the lab and working satisfactorily.
The committees will check whether IT teacher or any other teacher, who has been given IT training, is teaching and supervising the lab. The committees will ensure that the IT teachers must not be assigned to teach other subjects in schools at the cost of IT education. They should also ensure that the IT labs are being utilised by the interested students during working hours without any discrimination. Finally, they will also ensure that security measures, as per instructions of the government, are being followed and the lab is being maintained properly.
The chief minister has also nominated MPAs in respective districts as heads of the district monitoring committees.
Bioinformatics: Chief Minister’s senior adviser Sirdar Zulifqar Ali Khan Khosa has said the biotechnology-based industry in the country is in infancy and there is a lot of space for modern research.
He was speaking at the inaugural session of a two-day national conference on “Bioinformatics -opening up new frontiers in molecular biology research”, organised by the University of Veterinary and Animals Sciences here on Friday.
Mr Khosa said the Punjab government was well aware of the importance of use and needs of bioinformatics and biotechnology in the areas of health, identification of genetics markers for certain diseases, drug development, recombinant vaccine production and genetic improvement of livestock for better production.
He hoped the eminent professors and scientists gathered at the conference would look into the future strategies to improve livestock productivity and health by applying modern bioinformatics tools in combination with state-of-the-art molecular biology techniques.
Earlier, UVAS Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Nawaz said the national conference on bioinformatics was organised to keep up with the advancements in the field of bioinformatics and its role in molecular biology research that led to the achievement of miraculous gains in human health, biotechnology as well as livestock productivity and health in modern countries.Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology Director Prof Dr Masroor Elahi Babar said recent developments in Pakistan in the fields of biotechnology and genomics as well as in information technology had created an ambience for undertaking the challenging task related to biotechnology, genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics.
A large number of students and varsity faculties’ deans, directors and chairmen attended conference’s inaugural session. As many as 30 delegates from different universities and research organisations are participating in the conference.
Source: Dawn
Date:5/15/2010
