Pakistan: 55,000 youths to get job training this year, says Qaim Ali Shah

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The Sindh chief minister said on Monday 55,000 youths would be provided training with stipends under the Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development Programme (BSYDP) this year to enable them to get jobs in public and private sectors. Presiding over a meeting with the programme’s management here, Qaim Ali Shah said some 198,000 youths had been trained in different trades during the last government of his ruling Pakistan People’s Party.

More than 60,000 of the youths got themselves absorbed in private and public sectors, while many thousands were earning a living through self-employment, he added.

The chief minister said the success of the programme could be gauged from the fact that 84,000 youths had filed applications seeking job training, whereas the institutions working with the programme had an enrolment capacity for 53,000 candidates.

He said the programme had been appreciated by the World Bank and other International donor agencies, especially for providing qualitative skill development training to reduce poverty and unemployment from society. An international donor agency has offered 1,606.88 million in soft loans to provide training to additional 45,000 youths within three years. Besides, Unicef has offered financial assistance to provide alternate job training to 8,000 children of farmers in cotton growing areas in Ghotki and Khairpur districts to help them get rid of labour entailing health hazards (such as cotton-picking).

Similarly, the World Bank had offered 100 million dollars for youth development schemes in Sindh, the chief minister said, adding that hopefully these initiatives would reduce unemployment and provide income opportunities to millions of youths in the near future.

Appreciating the efforts made by the BBSYDP management for running the programme in an efficient manner, he directed the officers to enhance the institutional network of this programme in such a way that all applicants were able to enroll for training and get jobs in public and private sectors. He also directed the management to establish a youth employment facilitating centre in all districts to guide the young people on getting training, jobs and self-employment.

BBSYDP Chairman Riazuddin Shaikh and MD Karim Siddique briefed the meeting about the achievements and plans of the institution. They said the programme had been addressing the twin issues of poverty and unemployment through human resources development in the province since 2008. They said it had completed its four phases with success, trained about 200,000 youths and was endeavoring to enhance its capacity and provide training to more youths in more market-oriented trades, including information technology. Chief Secretary Sajjad Saleem Hotiyana, Special Secretary to the CM Abbas Baloch, Finance Secretary Sohail Rajput, Consultant to the CM on Youth Development Engineer Taimoor Siyaal, Suleman Dasti and other officers attended the meeting.