Agreeing to the proposal put forth by Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal, the British High Commissioner Sir Dominic Asquith today pledged all support and cooperation to the state government in the field of agriculture diversification, skill development besides providing English language trainers to train local teachers so as to enable them to make our students proficient in learning skills of writing, speaking, and listening of English. An assurance to this effect was given by the visiting delegation led by Sir Asquith during a meeting with the Chief Minister here at his residence this morning.The British envoy assured the Chief Minister that he would soon take up this matter with the British Council to include Punjab in their National Training for Trainers programme in collaboration with Ministry of Human Resources, Government of India to train nearly 3000 teachers across the state during its three years course. He said after this training module, if needed, another year would be exclusively devoted to further upgrade their skills in teaching English as per international standards.
Likewise, he also conceded to Mr. Badal’s request for English teachers’ exchange programme between the United Kingdom and Punjab, which would go a long way in providing opportunity to the English language teachers to apprise them about their cultural and social scenario.The Chief Minister also impressed upon Sir Asquith to provide technical know-how to the pig farmers of the state to promote piggery on scientific lines to give a major fillip to the allied farming activities besides enhancing the income of farmers substantially. He apprised the British envoy that our government had already taken initiative to ink a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with British Pig Association (BPA) to develop and promote piggery and sought his personal intervention to get it expedited without any further delay as Punjab has a tremendous export potential of pig meat to Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Mr. Badal told the British High Commissioner that the state government was in touch with BPA to get live pigs and frozen semen for developing high quality breeding facilities at government pig farms, which in turn would supply the best quality piglets to the local pig farmers.
Highly appreciating the Punjab government’s initiatives for the development of piggery, Sir Asquith promised to provide all technical support and expertise to our progressive pig farmers to further consolidate their economic position.Envisaging keen interest to forge collaboration in the field of skill development programme, the Chief Minister sought cooperation from Sir Asquith to help the state to start internationally accredited vocational training/skill development programmes to equip our unemployed youth to be gainfully employed across the globe. Prominent amongst others who were present in the meeting included; Special Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Mr. K.J.S. Cheema besides British Deputy High Commissioner Chandigarh Mr. David Lelliott, Deputy Head of Mission Mr. Charanjiv Bachhara and Political & Media Advisor Ms. Alam Bains.