US helping Pak to invest more in education: Clinton

“When I think about the extraordinarily accomplished Pakistanis in the professions,in medicine,in education,I think it is certainly the case that if Pakistan had invested more in the education of children so that poor families would not have sent their boys off to be educated by extremists,it might well have made a difference,” she said in an interview to ‘New York Times Magazine’.

“And it still can,because that’s part of our approach now,” she said.

US lawmakers have voted to provide USD 7.5 billion for Pakistan over the next five years in non-military assistance. Since the September 11,2001 attacks,the US gave Pakistan USD seven billion in military assistance.

Clinton said she had told former military ruler Pervez Musharraf that more of the money should be going to education.

She recalled a trip to a Pakistani village outside Lahore where families hesitated to send children,particularly girls,to schools because the kids would need to travel far away to the closest educational institution.