KARACHI, Feb 26: Students are still deprived of their right to form unions in educational institutes. This was stated during a discussion on “Youth and their problems”, organized by the Progressive Youth Front here on Saturday evening.

Labour Party of Pakistan leader Nasir Mansoor said that the ruling class exploited the rights of youth and instead of providing them relief aggravated their problems. Denying the youth of proper job opportunities was the major tool of their exploitation, he said. It was stated that 45 per cent of people were jobless. Instead of providing job to youth, the rulers were bent to render more and more people jobless, he remarked.

Besides, he added, the youth had been deprived of education as till now the rulers had failed to initiate a major step to promote education. Similarly in health sector, youth were facing with serious problems due to lack of proper facilities.

He said that the country was being ruled with a worn out system based on feudal and capitalistic values. He said that this inefficient system could not solve the problems in health, education, jobs and transport sectors.

Youth leader Shakeel Malik said that literacy rate in the country was below 35 per cent while only 1.7 per cent of the budget was being spent on education. He asked youth to offer a tough resistance for realization of their due rights. It was demanded that at least 15 per cent of the budget should be spent on education and each student should be given a monthly allowance of Rs3,000 in order to promote education.

Hameeda Ghanghiro, Azra Urooj, Zahra Akbar Khan, Wajahat Ali, Mumtaz Ood, Shahid Khan, Saif and Sarmad Aakash also spoke. —PPI