ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister’s Youth Programme Chairperson Leila Khan has said that about 50,000 graduates would be offered paid internship under the PM’s Youth Training Scheme, which is set to be launched soon.
In an exclusive talk with the state-owned news agency on Monday, Leila pointed out that an educated youth, having 16 years of education from Higher Education Commission (HEC) approved institutions, would be placed in public as well as private sector organisations and be paid Rs12,000 per month stipend for one year.
She said it is for the first time that private sector has been involved in internship scheme with sole objective not only to facilitate the youth but also ensure more employment opportunities for them after their adequate training and capacity building through internship programme.
Leila Khan, also a member of National Assembly and Central Chief Organiser of PML-N, Women Youth Wing, said the geographical spread of the scheme was all over Pakistan and selection would be made as per their domicile but can be placed in organisations outside of their domicile region based on demand profile and matching of applicant profile. The age limit for applicant is 25 years, she added.
She said all leading private sector firms/bodies and development sector organisations, federal, provincial and local government offices including educational institutions will be offered services of the internees.
Giving province-wise break-up of interns, she said 25,000 interns would be selected from Punjab, 1,000 from Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), 3,000 from Balochistan, 2,000 from Gilgit-Baltistan/Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), 3,750 from Islamabad/Federal Region, 5,750 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and 9,500 youth would be provided internship opportunity from Sindh (urban/rural).
Replying to a question, she said to make the process more transparent and merit-based, receiving of all applications and selection of candidate would be made online. She said allocation of interns will be made in accordance with the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award and Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) recruitment criteria for provincial and regional quotas.
Leila said the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme was a flagship programme of the government for socio-economic development with a budget outlay of Rs20 billion and added around 300,000 people are benefitting from its different schemes annually.
The other scheme under Prime Minister’s Youth Programme was Laptop Scheme under which around 0.1 million laptops have been distributed so far amongst students registered in HEC approved educational institutions in first phase. The second phase is about to be launched soon, she added.
The programme’s chairperson said 0.1 million laptops would be disbursed every year. The proposed budget allocation for next four years (2014-18) to execute this scheme is Rs20 billion, she added. She said for the first time a local assembly unit under this scheme has been installed and around 1000 laptops were assembled during first year, adding that in next four years, it is planned not only to enhance technical capacity of this unit to 0.15 million but also move towards parts manufacturing and technology transfer which will create a lot of job opportunities for the educated youth, she added.
