Pakistan’s magnificent human capital relies on the teachers’ wisdom, Australian High Commissioner to Pakistan Margaret Adamson said on Wednesday.

She said every teacher has a broad role-modeling duty to inspire the future leaders and responsibility for passing on the sense of citizenry. She said Australia is one of the most diverse countries on earth and has many minorities from its indigenous people to smaller communities that have arrived over the period of extensive migration that Australia has experienced and has indeed welcomed. While engaging with fundamental issues, there is a need to reflect that every human being is equal regardless of the gender, background, culture, religion. Fundamental human rights are global rights, she said, adding that Pakistan Center of Excellence’s (PACE) – a key initiative of the CRSS – is cross-cutting, disciplinary and national while engaging in the large global issues of today.

Adamson was addressing the closing ceremony of PACE’s first round of collaborative workshops, a five-day residential training programme from March 5-9. PACE is a major CVE initiative launched by the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) – with the support from the government of Netherlands and in partnership with the COMSATS Institute of Information Technology – to promote democratic values, respect for diversity, fundamental human rights and virtues of tolerance as a measure of ensuring social peace and harmony for peaceful co-existence.

It aims to facilitate a socio-political discourse – the Alternate Narrative on democratic rights and responsibilities anchored in the globally accepted and practiced concepts such as rule of law, equal citizenry, secular governance as a primary condition for social cohesion, and tolerance for, and acceptance of cultural diversity. The discussion themes were primarily rule of law, tolerance, diversity, fundamental human rights, equal citizenry and democracy and governance. CRSS Executive Director Imtiaz Gul said that the idea of counter-radicalisation initiative PACE was to reach out to the potential opinion multipliers and induce them into critical thinking through a discourse anchored in fundamental global values such as socio-political diversity, acceptance of diversity, rule of law and equal citizenry.

This article originally appeared in Daily Times, March 10, 2016: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/national/10-Mar-2016/australian-hc-stresses-teachers-role-in-exploiting-pakistan-s-human-capital