Vocational skills: Training offered to 0.1m unemployed youth

Training would be imparted based on local demand of the industry.

ISLAMABAD:

National Vocational and Technical Education Commission (NAVTEC) Chairman Muhammad Mumtaz Akhtar Kahloon said on Thursday that NAVTEC would impart vocational training to about one lakh jobless youth in the country.

Talking to reporters outside the parliament, he said the NAVTEC had trained about 147,000 youth and most of them acquired jobs in different organisations.

He said that the upper house of the parliament passed the National Vocational and Technical Training Commission Bill, 2011 on Thursday.

Kahloon hoped that NAVTEC would help reduce unemployment and promote technical skills to the workforce, adding that the organisation would also ensure jobs to youngsters who were trained there. Training would be imparted based on the local demand of the industry, he said.

He also requested the President and the PM to issue directives to banks for issuing soft loans to train youth so they can establish their own businesses.

NAVTEC was not only conducting free courses for jobless and unskilled youth in areas like Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata on a priority basis. A Rs2,000 stipend is also paid per month to every trainee; additionally, free tool kits are provided to them on completion of their courses.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2011.