KARACHI: Showing deep concerns over growing Joblessness in the country, Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor here Sunday demanded that economic policies of Pakistan should revolve around job creation to pull out millions of family from poverty.
He said successive governments in Pakistan, both democratic and dictatorships, have taken care of the vested interests of the elite class, ignoring vast majority of the poor masses. He said our taxation system is based to protect feudal lords and tycoons of trade and industry but to extort higher taxes from working class people. He said without changing this approach we can’t attain national progress and prosperity.
He said industrial and agricultural sectors have immense potential to create millions of new jobs, but the government is saving the interests of import mafia and even we have to import food items despite being an agricultural nation. He said making new dams and canals on one hand and using water saving technologies like drip irrigation on the other hands can make Pakistan a grain basket by cultivating our vast arid and semi-arid lands. He said our arid lands are our goldmines but they need proper attention as they alone can end rural poverty within a few years.
Altaf Shakoor said our failed education system is the main reason behind our growing Joblessness. We don’t need prolonged formal degree programmers but short technical job-oriented diploma programs that could lead to degrees. He said instead of giving five year education and training to doctors, we should create five one-year stage-bases diploma programs in medicine and surgery. A candidate completing all five diplomas may be awarded MBBS degree, but those only passing a few diplomas can become huge workforce of nurses, paramedics and medical technicians. This approach should also be adopted in education and training of engineering, legal, accounting, management and other disciplines.
He said we should follow innovative ways in education and training with a main focus on job creation. He said making startups should be made a mandatory part of all education diploma or degree programmers so that students could focus on creating their own businesses instead of solely relying on salaried work.
