Government introduces Rs150b youth package
The federal government on Tuesday formally unveiled the Prime Minister’s Youth Development Package worth Rs150 billion to empower the younger generation with modern and technical education.
Youth Program:
Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal launched 15 programmes under the umbrella of the Prime Minister’s Youth Development Initiatives at a ceremony held here.
The ‘Teleschool Pakistan App, Google for Education, and Digital Continuous Professional Development’ initiative are launch Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s government to revolutionize the formal education medium in Pakistan. As part of this initiative, the government rolled out the youth program.
The Youth Development Package includes 60,000 paid internships, technical and vocational trainings for 100,000 youth, distribution of 100,000 laptops, provision of 5,000 scholarships for the students of Balochistan and erstwhile tribal areas.
Around 1,000 PhD scholarships at top 100 universities in the United States and 75 scholarships at top 25 universities of the world, establishing 21 university campuses in remote districts and 250 sports complexes, are also part of the package.
Education:
Besides, the package envisages youth peace and development student councils in 80 universities, 75 leadership awards, 500 innovation grants worth Rs5-20 million each, Rasta grants for research, 12 Seerat chairs, seven centres of excellence and uplift of 20 poorest districts.
At the ceremony, Iqbal said that the country must empower young people, who make up two-thirds of the population, through education and skills, so that they can contribute to the socioeconomic development of the country.
At the launching ceremony, the government minister also administered oath to the Young Peace Development Corps (YPDC) that are attach to the country’s various universities.
The key objective of the YPDC is to bring young people together.
The ceremony are attend to Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Youth Affairs Shaza Fatima, Higher Education Commission Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed and thousands of students from across the country.
Speaking on the occasion, Fatima said the government was committed to providing a conducive and enabling environment to the youth so that they could be empowered, making them able to play a role in the socioeconomic uplift of the country.
Teleschool app:
During the launching ceremony of ‘Teleschool Pakistan App, Google for Education, and Digital Continuous Professional Development’, Prime Minister Shahbaz stressed the need to utilize all available resources and efforts to introduce modern modes of education, including digitization initiatives.
Stressing the importance of imparting the latest training to teachers, the prime minister cited his experience in Punjab, observing that it was unfortunate that the teachers’ training in the country was not up to the mark.
The prime minister urged the federal education minister to chalk out a mechanism in consultation with the provincial governments to improve the quality of teachers’ training.
He also underscored the significance of adopting technology in modern education.
He emphasised that the students should be directly trained by involving the private sector.
“PM said that the government should hire the best institutions in the private sector in a transparent manner and make an investment on each student by imparting proper training to them.”
During a speech, the Prime Minister announced that his government would establish a network of Danish schools in the remote areas of Balochistan, and they would make significant investments for this purpose.
PM hoped that the quality of education in remote areas would come at par with the rest of the country.
He also urged that the educational requirements of the orphan children should be taken care of.
He said imparting the latest education to the young generations should be the goal of life for them.
Earlier, the prime minister also distributed chrome books among different students of Islamabad. On the occasion, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited President Hatem Bamatraf also addressed the ceremony.
Published on Logical Baat, March 22, 2023.
