In today’s increasingly competitive industrialized world it is said that the economic position of any country can be evaluated by observing its ability to sustain a balance between its availability of untapped reserves and their periodic utilization for moderating the country’s demand and supply gap. While there are many factors like population surge and urbanization, that could be held responsible for creating this gap; however, it has been seen that the failure to equilibrate between availability and utilisation has further augmented the gap.
As the availability of reserves and their exploitation balance is crucial to economic stability with a prolonged impact, there is a necessity to re-discover and evaluate the available resources in the country. The aim should be to identify and harness the ones yielding the sustainable outcomes, which not only provide an impetus for economic boost, but also encourage the social, moral and ethical development to the recipients of those resources i.e. the people.
Primarily, when we first begin to consider the resources of a country, valuable elements such as Copper and Uranium or the all-important Crude Oil, natural gas and coal reserves etc. come in to mind. However, we must not give so much attention to the inanimate elements that we ignore the main force behind a country’s development. Without which, all the natural resources will be rendered useless, and that, is the work force of the country and most importantly, the ‘youth’ which will enter the work force soon (or has recently entered) and will remain for a considerable period of time contributing to the economic development of the country.
According to UNICEF statistics, Pakistan has one of the world’s youngest population, with+68% per cent of the population aged 25 or under. This is a staggering proportion, and to no one’s surprise it is inevitable that this dominate group needs to be appropriately accommodated. But sadly, these expectations have not materialised in the governmental policies.
Pakistan is fortunate to be a country in possession of natural resources of such great value, yet regretfully it remains inept in terms of strategic management. In contrast the Western countries and even neighbouring China bearing a huge population have successfully initiated schemes and programmes directed towards the skill enhancement of the younger generation. Educational scholarships, Apprenticeships for the more practical and the ever increasing entrepreneurship opportunities have all proved to be successful in directing the countries toward progress. And so we can see how there needs to be a rapid and timely response from the government in attempt to steer the energies of the youngsters towards productive means. If we are to attain success, we must place our youth at the forefront of priorities. We cannot allow the main and the most abundant proportion of our population, and the main ‘reserve’ of resources to remain directionless or ‘untapped’. If such remains the case then the prospects of the country’s progress shall also remain bleak, and the economic crisis cannot be overcome.
This may also raise the question on what medium is to be used to ensure appropriate skill acquisition of the youth. Answer to this matter lies in the joint resolution legislated by the UN assembly in 2000, namely: Millennium Development Goals; including “Education for All” objective as its most important element. The policy makers must revisit and consult this document in order to be able to design a suitable and a functional programme which could potentially alleviate the many ills and economic crisis of the country. And it is worth mentioning that the responsibility of this does not lie solely on the shoulder of the government but all stakeholders of the state, including the political leaders and social leaders who inspire great awe amongst the youngsters and carry the capacity to be able to dictate their actions.
In addition to the provision of education for both genders on equal basis, other complementing programmes also need to be established to reinforce the objectives. Programmes and schemes like Youth Business Loan & Prime Minister Business Plan Entrepreneurial Challenge should be activated continuously at
Its a nice and complete article, and very well said about the national and natural reserve of our country is Youth. But unfortunately the political parties are distinguishing our youth not on the basis of merit but according to the language they speak.
Astounding article reflecting current crises, however the leaders of the state are heedless to find any solutions.its very unlikely that they’d ever encourage anything to aggrandize the youth. Its disheartening to even form such opinion about our beloved land that the system from top to bottom is corrupted, which is assuredly a reality.