LAHORE, Pakistan: National Vocational Training Commission Executive Director Zulfiqar Ahmed Cheema said on Wednesday that the Punjab Growth Strategy-2018 would provide employment to 500,000 youth across the province.
Talking to the state-run news agency, Zulfiqar Cheema said that six-month vocational training courses have been started under the strategy which would provide the youth with the best opportunities to learn skills and help them earn a living in the country and abroad.
Cheema said the government was taking steps to provide employment opportunities to women who have completed training courses recently at vocational institutes. He said that interest-free loans would be provided to trained women, who wanted to launch their businesses after completing courses.
Due to a rapidly increasing labour force, the province needs to grow at a much faster rate every year to provide enough jobs, especially of good quality, to young people entering the job market, he added.
“The strategy-2018, based on the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS-2014) shows that we are slowly progressing,” he added. “So the big challenge we are facing is how to feed, employ and educate 60 per cent youth (aged between 15 to 30) of Punjab’s total population,” he said.
He said that the government was making concerted efforts to empower country’s youth and women through education and skills.
“Pakistani youth is the future of the country who would make it prosperous,” he said adding that the youth all over the world through history has been a revolutionary force.
