June 06, 2006	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 9, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

RAWALPINDI, June 5: Unemployment and under-employment have brought frustration and despair to the educated youth who have lost confidence in the very education system in the country.

Public sector offers too few jobs and the private sector is so ill organised that either it cannot accommodate a large workforce or it pays wages to the employees that does not meet the basic needs of life.

The corollary of the scenario is that the pool of the unemployed swells every year. A sort of cynicism is creeping in the mind of educated but jobless youth about the value of education.

Mazhar Qayyum, a graduate of a local college who was waiting for his turn for an interview for a job in a multinational fast- food chain, told Dawn that it was his fourth attempt to get job after completing his graduation two years ago.

“My family had pinned high hopes on me as I am the eldest son but after two years of unyielding struggle their expectations have been dashed down,” he said, adding that the miseries he and his family were going thorough were too traumatic to be expressed in words.

Mazhar, with his colleagues also waiting for the interview, said he could no longer afford to remain jobless. With palpable anguish on his face, he said after fourteen years of education there was no silver lining for him. Mazhar and his colleagues were of the view that the education system in the country produced a workforce that could not meet the requirements of the market and also the industry was too small to incorporate the ever expanding number of the unemployed.

“It seems our education system has been devised in isolation of the real challenges one has to face in the market,” said Naeem, a friend of Mazhar, adding that the rising number of unemployed youth was an alarming situation which was not drawing due attention of the policy makers.

Naeem said the sorry situation was turning the educated youth into desperadoes propelling them into the activities that are frivolous and even sometimes anti-social.