British High Commissioner Dominic Asquith on Tuesday pledged support and cooperation to the Punjab Government in the field of agriculture diversification, skill development and providing English language trainers.
The assurance was given by the visiting delegation, led by Asquith, during a meeting with Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday.
Asquith 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, to train nearly 3,000 teachers across the State during its three years course.
He said that after this training module, if needed, another year will be exclusively devoted to further upgrade their skills in teaching English as per international standards.
There will also be English teachers’ exchange programme between the United Kingdom and Punjab.
Badal also impressed upon Asquith to provide technical know-how to pig farmers to promote piggery on scientific lines for giving a major fillip to the allied farming activities, besides enhancing the income of farmers.
He apprised the British envoy that the State Government had already taken an 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.