Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Youth Affairs Shiza Fatima on Friday announced that the government would launch the first-ever national youth employment policy to address the biggest challenge of unemployment in the country.
“Unemployment is the biggest challenge facing by the country for which a comprehensive policy has been formulated and will be launched soon,” she said while addressing the Pakistan Youth Convention.
Highlighting the vision of prime minister for youth empowerment, she said 100,000 skill scholarships were being awarded to the youth to boost skilled workforce, which would eventually uplift the industry by bridging demand-supply gap of human resource.
100,000 laptops were also being distributed among universities and college students with allocation of 50 per cent quota for women and special persons, she said, adding empowering the youngsters, especially women was the government’s foremost priority.
The SAPM said the national Olympic would be organized to promote games in the country and bring out new talent for representing Pakistan at international level.
She said all-out resources were being used to empower the youth who could play a crucial role in the socio-economic development of Pakistan. Soft loans were being distributed among the youth to promote the entrepreneurial culture in the country, she added.
Last month, Fatima Khawaja had announced that the work on Prime Minister’s Laptop Scheme was in progress, under which free laptops will be distributed among 100,000 youth of government universities and colleges soon. Under the scheme, high quality laptops will be provided to the youth purely on merit.
“These laptops will be provided to all PhD and post graduate students while the top performers in undergraduate programs will also be included in the scheme” she informed. She said that the quota for the students of Balochistan has been doubled in the laptop scheme, while the quota has also been allocated for the disabled students, adding, 50 percent quota has been allocated for women in scheme.
As many as 100,000 youth, she said, will be trained in skills and information technology through Prime Minister Skilled Programme, she remarked. She said that the Prime Minister Youth Program was started by the Pakistan Muslim League (N) government in 2013, which included 6 steps to empower the youth.
