Education Minister Dr. Aishath Shiham has said that the Government backed Unlimited Aasandha scheme can only become a reality when every citizen has free access to medicines from every island.
She made the statement on Monday night, in the graduation ceremony of the 401 pharmacists trained by STO and Tivet.
In her address, Dr. Shiham said that Unlimited Aasandha was a core pledge by President Abdullah Yameen Abdul Qayyoom, noting that the pledge had been fulfilled within six months of his presidential tenure. She added that the President was fully aware of the impact free access to medication will have on the public. Dr. Shiham stated that it was based on this that the Government’s ambitious scheme to open a pharmacy in every island was started and completed in a mere period of two years.
“This has been supplemented to provide the service without interruption, by creating a workforce stationed in the island. The program to train talented and educated pharmacists was a personal project carried out with the assistance of STO and Education Ministry. As a result of this, 700 new jobs has been created,” she said.
Minister said that the development of the nation was not proceeding step by step but rather moving in leaps and bounds.
“One of the examples is the pharmacists training program. If we were to train 100 students a year, it would have taken seven years to train this amount which we had trained in two years. This was speeded up to provide higher quality of life and to maintain pharmacies,” she said.
Dr. Shiham further said that President Yameen was the architect of the current development of the nation, stating that President Yameen did not target for mediocre and average result.
“Our instructions are to bring forth rapid changes in a short period of time. The students graduating tonight are a sign of his vision to create talented and educated youth for the future of the nation,” the Minister said.