Skills Programs are Key to Providing Economic Opportunities for Youth of Pakistan : President Alvi

Islamabad:President of Pakistan Dr. Arif Alvi has said that other than Education, skills programs are key to providing economic opportunities for Pakistani youth which will help the country progress.

In a recent interview with Qaiser Nawab, founder “COVID-19 Youth Task Force”, President Alvi said that there needs to be more emphasis on providing opportunities to the country’s youth – which make up about 65 per cent of Pakistan’s population.

He pointed to current programs that are being provided to Pakistan’s younger population that provide them with skills training to help them succeed, including the Kamyab Jawan program and the Hunarmand Program.

The Kamyab Jawan program alone gave out 20 billion rupees to people aged 20 to 40 last year. This year, he said the government has contributed 100 billion rupees to the program.

“If there is no skill with a person, he just does raw labor,” said President Alvi. “From the raw labour, we want to improve his skills to a certain level where he’s able to improve his livelihood, and he’s also able to contribute to the economy of the country.”

In his interview with Mr. Nawab, President Alvi also said his government’s goal is to ensure that 100 percent of the population gets admitted to schools – and, encourage women’s education.

“We have a lot of programs where we are trying to ensure the fact that there’s no dropout among the women in Pakistan,” President Alvi said. “In fact, in medicine, there are 80 per cent women and only 20 per cent male people who have become doctors in the past and will become doctors in the future.”

As women start their own families, Dr. Alvi said it’s important to provide them with options – such as telemedicine if they work in the medical field – so they can continue contributing to the economy.

The interview with Mr. Nawab was featured on the Henna Hundal Show. Qaiser Nawab is an award-winning strategic communications expert with nearly 10 years of experience as an advocate for social change. He is a youth Pakistani leader working globally for the Sustainable Development Goals and is the founder of the global youth organization “THE” Society International (Together for Health and Education).