Consultation at GIK Institute: Rana Mashood promises national youth policy in three months

SWABI: Prime Minister’s Youth Programme Chairman Rana Mashood Ahmad Khan said on Friday that the national youth policy was expected to be ready within three months.

He made this statement during a consultative session on the National Adolescent and Youth Policy with students at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan (GIK) Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology.

The gathering, organized under the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme, was attended by students from Women University Swabi, University of Swabi, GIK Institute, as well as local colleges and seminaries.

The consultative aimed to incorporate the views of educated youth into the national youth policy. “We strive to make the youth policy result-oriented,” said one of the officials from Rana Mashood’s team who was present at the event.

Rana Mashood stated, “We are making efforts to formulate a youth policy that is endorsed by the federal and provincial cabinets, the parliament, and all provincial assemblies. In this connection, I have already visited various institutions of higher education and plan to visit 26 more universities soon.”

He said the government planned to train 1.2 million youth under the Digital Youth Hub and had devised a strategy to send them to various developed and developing countries for employment opportunities.

Rana Mashood also mentioned that alongside the free laptop scheme, the federal government planned to provide laptops to 150,000 students on easy instalments, repayable over five to six years.

“The government has already distributed free laptops to 1.7 million outstanding students in Punjab and the federal capital, Islamabad, on merit,” he added.Commenting on India’s war-mongering, he said that India could not stop the water flow to Pakistan because it knew it would face dire consequences.

Prof Dr M. S. Hasan Zaidi, Rector of GIK Institute, said that the event was a milestone in shaping Pakistan’s first-ever holistic National Adolescent and Youth Policy - a policy being crafted for youth and by youth.

“Its inclusive and consultative nature ensures that young voices are truly at the heart of national development. With over 60 percent of our population under the age of 30, our youth are our greatest asset,” he said.

Mehboob Ahmad, who represented religious institutions, said there were a total of 28,000 madaris (religious seminaries) where three million students were receiving religious education, while 1.46 million students were enrolled in 262 universities across the country. He demanded that madaris, like other higher education institutions, should receive funds from the Higher Education Commission.

Babar Saleem, the provincial coordinator of the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme, also attended the consultative meeting.Later, Rana Mashood addressed a youth convention at Sheikh Dheri and urged young people to register for the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme.