Under Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development Programme (BBSYDP), more than 100,000 unemployed youth were provided technical training in various trades, helping them to get proper jobs, said Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah.
He was speaking at a joint meeting of the BBSYDP and Sindh Technical Education Vocational Training Authority (STEVTA) officials held at the Chief Minister’s House on Thursday.
STEVTA Minister Abdul Salam Thaheem and Managing Director Abdul Wahid Uqaili, recently elected senator Aajiz Dhamrah, BBSYDP Provincial Coordinator Karim Baksh Siddiqui and its members, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Agha Jan Akhter, Special Secretary Abdul Hafeez Abbasi, representatives of private sector and prominent businessmen among others attended the meeting.
Urging the participation of women in the programme, the chief minister said that the government is striving hard to create employment opportunities for the youth in every sector and all resources would be utilised for the purpose.
He said that under Benazir Bhutto’s vision and party policy to end poverty and unemployment from the society, progress on various developmental programmes is underway.
Addressing the participants, Senator Dhamrah said that under the directives of President Asif Ali Zardari, the skills and professional capabilities of the youths are being enhanced through training under the BBSYDP.
“As per their merit, they are being provided employment in their respective fields and sectors also,” he said. “The four-year progress of BBSYDP is pleasing that can be further highlighted through proper media projection.”
Earlier, the BBSYDP provincial coordinator and the STEVTA MD briefed the chief minister on their respective programmes, informing him that at present 104,174 youths were trained in 386 trades of 89 public and private employment sectors.
The programmes focused on skill training for employment, from planning to certification levels. Employment avenues for BBSYDP graduates include various streams in public sector, time scale employment, private sector wage employment, formal sector employment, self employment and entrepreneur sector employment with the matching of the skill training.
“Moreover, 32,060 women have been trained in a number of trades to make them self-reliant and agents of change,” they said.
The given training of the youths was qualitative, which will help them to get jobs in the national as well as the international market jobs. A briefing was also given on how to keep the programme transparent by computerising all the data and monitoring daily progress online.
At the meeting, it was said that 10 model institution projects in various cities were working successfully, where German experts have been hired for vocational training purpose.
