Breakfast with Jang: Govt focusing on youth skill development: Shafqat

LAHORE : Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood on Saturday said the government was focusing skill development among the youth as skilled human resource could help the country progress speedily.

While answering to the questions of stakeholders at Breakfast with Jang, Shafqat Mahmood said that even highly qualified youth could not succeed in getting employment as the qualification they obtained did not match or come up to the expectation of market. It is needed to equip them with the market-oriented skills, he added.

Recently, PhD scholars held a protest demonstration in Islamabad over unemployment, he said, adding it reflected the state of unemployment in the country where top qualified were not getting jobs. He said skill development should be focused as the skilled human resource could help the country progress speedily.

“It was responsibility of the government to enable business friendly environment,” he said, adding the government had taken special measures to provide an environment to the youth where they could learn and explore their abilities and skills. He said that the government would provide incentives besides facilitating the private sector in setting up institutions to promote skill development.

He also urged the private sector to come forward under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and help the country on its way to development and progress by providing various skills to the educated youth of the country.

Talking about a uniform education system across the country, the federal minister said that presently the education sector was divided into four tiers, i.e. seminaries, government schools, private schools and elite educational institutes having international affiliations. He said it had divided society and put a very negative impact on society in Pakistan.

The government has already directed all the attached departments of education sector to enhance their output for promoting and strengthening uniform education system in the country, he said, adding Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had put in place revolutionary measures to improve education sector.

He said private and elite schools were resisting the uniform syllabus but the government’s vision was to introduce uniform subjects across the country and in this regard a consultative board comprising eminent writers, scholars and curriculum specialists had been constituted. “We are going to focus on four areas that include helping out-of-school children, constituting a single national curriculum, improving quality of education and developing skills of our young people,” he said, adding over 20 million children were not going to school in the country. The government has started a pilot project under which 2,8000 children will be brought back to school in the capital city with the help of NGOs and other partners, he said. The minister also answered to questions of the participants and assured the school owners that their urgent issues and grievances would be addressed as soon as possible. The minister also said that the government was working to implement Urdu as national language in the light of the Supreme Court’s decision.