Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Sen. Lugar stresses on education funding to prevent terrorism
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Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN)
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Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, on April 19 urged the Bush administration to further stress education as a tool to prevent growth of terrorism as it was doing in Pakistan.
At the hearing entitled, ‘Combating Terrorism Through Education: The Near East and South Asian Experience,’ Senator Lugar noted that only 39 percent of women in Pakistan were literate and acknowledged the various initiatives taken by the Bush administration in bilateral relations with Pakistan and Bangladesh complimented by various other programs. The U.S. recently tripled its education spending in Pakistan. “We need to assess whether national security benefits could be achieved by taking similar steps in other nations.”
He stressed the need to expand student exchange programs rather than scale them back, “as they not only serve our national security interests, but also enrich our own society and culture.”
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