Islamabad: March 20, 2017: Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq inaugurated a 3-day training program titled “Training of Trainers (TOT): Parliamentary Studies Program” at Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS). The program is being well attended by around 36 faculty members and academia from 22 reputed institutions from all over Pakistan, who are either working on the program or planning to introduce the parliamentary studies program in their respective institutions.Under the patronage of Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Vice Chancellors, Deans & Head of Departments of 25 universities previously signed the declaration to commence parliamentary studies degree in their universities.

While addressing the participants, the Speaker informed about his initiatives of parliamentary diplomacy, austerity drive in the expenditures of the Secretariat, energy audit for identifying energy wastage, capacity building of the human resource, and creation of paperless environment and electrification of Parliament building on solar energy with the assistance of Chinese government.
 
Sardar Ayaz Sadiq also shared the progressive initiatives taken up by Parliament, which further enhanced the working philosophy and procedures at the Parliament. The introduction of various courses on Parliament’s working supported by PIPS, developing research unit at National Assembly, formation of Legislative Drafting Council (LDC) and importance of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)Secretariat were few of the initiatives Speaker shared.
 
The participants of the training program acknowledged the dynamic leadership of Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and eulogized the PIPS team for organizing such a professional workshop. They also emphasized the Parliament and PIPS to take up equivalency of parliamentary studies as a discipline to political science, strategic studies and social sciences so that students studying BS in Parliamentary Studies and Political Science should get admission to higher degrees with ease. After detail discussion, the Speaker also responded to the various questions and suggestions raised by the participants.
 
The Inaugural session concluded with a group photo of participants with Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq who expressed his hopes that the training will result in substantive and valuable outputs from academia to orient our coming generations regarding working of Parliament for the well-being of the citizens.
 
Later on, the participants also visited the Parliament House and witnessed the proceedings of the Session of National Assembly.