Karachi: The Liaquatabad Town Municipal Corporation has distributed laptops among 50 high-achieving students who secured A+ and A grades in their examinations at a ceremony held at Nursery Ground in Liaquatabad No. 5. An electric scooter was also presented to the top-performing female student in the A+ category.Jamaat-i-Islami Karachi chief Monem Zafar Khan was the chief guest at the ceremony. He also inaugurated the Huma Boys Primary School in Liaquatabad No. 5 along with Gulberg Central District chief Kamran Siraj and Liaquatabad Town Chairman Faraz Haseeb.The event was attended by Vice Town Chairman Ishaq Taimuri, Municipal Commissioner Darya Khan Patafi, coordinator Sagheer Ahmed Ansari, union committee chairmen and vice chairmen, municipal officials and employees, students, teachers and a large number of residents.Addressing the ceremony, Monem Zafar said investment in the education and training of children was the only guarantee of a bright future for the country.He said the distribution of lap tops was an acknowledgement of the students' hard work and a step towards a better future for them. The students who had achieved outstanding results had brought pride to their parents, teachers and locality, he added, stressing that encouraging such children was the responsibility of the entire society.He said the revival of schools in Liaquatabad had resulted in a significant increase in student enrolment, while teacher training programmes had also been arranged.He claimed that the JI had so far rehabilitated more than 70 schools in its nine towns. Referring to the role of government schools in the past, he said personalities such as Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan had studied at such institutions and brought honour to the country.He said the JI had restored all parks in Liaquatabad, established sports complexes, installed streetlights and introduced the concept of urban forests, while paving blocks were being laid in streets and neighbourhoods.He praised the performance of Liaquatabad Town and said Gulberg To wn had introduced the country's first Education Card. Similar cards, he announced, would be introduced in Liaquatabad in the new academic year to help parents educate their children amid rising inflation.Criticising the government, he said its 'incompetence and negligence' had pushed the education sector towards deterioration. He claimed that 26. 2 million children across the country were out of school, including 7. 8m in Sindh.He further claimed that 76 per cent of educational institutions in Sindh lacked electricity, 40pc lacked water facilities and 25pc did not have washrooms.Zafar also criticised the state of Karachi's infrastructure, saying more than half of the city's population lacked access to drinking water and that street crime had made citizens insecure.Siraj said familiarity with technology was as important as education in the modern era. Providing laptops to students was therefore an excellent initiative to equip them with contemporary educational tools, he said.Haseeb said the path to national development went through education. 'Our objective is to provide the children of Liaquatabad with better educational opportunities and to highlight their abilities, ' he said.He described the students securing A and A+ grades as a source of pride and said encouraging them was, in effect, an investment in the brighter future of society.The town chairman said Liaquatabad Town would undertake further measures to improve education and encourage students.