HARIPUR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa caretaker Chief Minister Justice retired Syed Arshad Hussain Shah has said his government has launched an ambitious plan of skilling 500,000 youth per annum to meet the demand of workforce in Europe and other countries.

This he said while speaking to students and faculty of the University of Haripur here on Saturday.

He said the government had a limited timeframe, and was supposed to hand over the power to the new elected government after holding of transparent elections, but he took every day in the caretaker setup as a mandate from God and was ambitious to deliver to the maximum.

He said the task force comprising ministers, secretaries and some vice-chancellors was busy devising a strategy to design courses in line with modern needs and compatibility with the job market so that students in their final year could get a job offer.

Asks varsities to design courses according to market demand

“I know how the files move in the offices but the task force is committed to making it easy for accomplishing the goal of producing skilled human resource,” he said, adding buildings of schools in merged districts and other parts of KP were being utilised for imparting market-oriented training to youth.

Mr Shah said the initiative would help the maximum number of youth enabling them to get jobs in European countries, Korea, Japan and Middle East.

“Every third man is jobless in the country and despite demands abroad we are unable to produce the skilled youth,” he said, adding the plan was going to be implemented from the current week.

He said two to three government institutions had been engaged to produce the skilled human resource after gathering data from the countries about their demand.

The caretaker CM said the education system must be revamped in accordance with market demands as students spending years in universities and colleges got depressed as they were unable to get jobs.

“Such youth often fall in the wrong hands and used for ulterior motives by the anti-state elements.

I want universities to help the students choose courses that are in demand in the market and become an asset of society instead of a liability,“ he emphasised.

Mr Shah said on the pattern of US’s Silicon Valley his government was going to start from the current week the quantum computing in the province for the first time across the country. He declared Haripur and Abbottabad as Quantum valley.

He said he had asked the VCs of all the 34 universities of the province to contribute their efforts by allocating a major share of their academic expertise to market-based demands of quantum technology and offer IT-based short courses so that students could get better job offers before completing their courses in the field of modern technology.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2023