17th NDU convocation: President highlights role of youths in research

President Mamnoon Hussain on Wednesday emphasized upon harnessing full innate potential of the country's youth as they possess immense energies and leadership abilities for future ventures in the field of research.
Speaking at 17th convocation of National Defence University (NDU), the President expressed his pleasure that about 60 per cent of country's population comprised youth which he said boded well for the future of Pakistan. The educational institutes and think tanks should share the responsibility to fully discover this potential by streamlining youths' capabilities in a better manner. They should also step forward to present feasible suggestions in this regard, he added. He said issues like terrorism were linked with unemployment and with effective strategy; these issues could be tackled and stressed upon provision of employment opportunities for the youth.
The President noted that for the country's solidarity and stability, people from all schools of thought should be involved in the decision making so that the country could be guided with consensus and solid proposals. He said, today the whole world including Pakistan had been facing myriad issues and the reason behind this is lack of clarity by the people with different faiths and beliefs residing in various parts of the world to reach a conclusion on how to face the emerging challenges of the modern world.
He underscored that the subjects like Islam and modernism, national harmony, governance, conflict resolution and national security required thorough discussion. It is also necessary to include experts from the administrative and defence affairs, educationists, media, religious scholar and common people in these debates so that people from all walks of life could become part of this process. The President observed that for an effective and comprehensive national strategy, this process was sine qua non.
He said that only those nations rose to prominence and gained respect who took every citizen of the state on board regarding formulation of national objectives and setting priorities without succumbing to internal differences. He suggested that the NDU and other national institutions should promote this thought. The universities besides promoting education also served the role of think tanks, thus these should make suggestions to the government for the national development and prosperity after painstaking debate.
The President also voiced his concern on the fact that the country had a large number of trained and untrained youth who are still unemployed. The federal government and some provinces have established National Vocational and Technical Training Commissions which were assisting the youth in exploring job opportunities in the country and abroad by imparting professional training. These were the efforts in right direction but the whole nation will have to play its part in order to deal with this huge challenge. He called upon NDU and other think tanks to come forward with proposals to overcome the issue of unemployment. The President underlined that if the issue of unemployment is resolved then the complex issue of extremism will also be defeated to a great extent.
The President also noted that the far flung areas of the country felt sense of deprivation and pessimism due to certain historic, social and political reasons, which also pave the way for negative tendencies. It is the responsibility of national institutions to ponder over these issues so that these areas could be illuminated with the beacon of education and employment opportunities could be created at their doorsteps, he added. In this way, the marginalized population of the country would be included in the mainstream by turning it into a useful and effective part of the society, he added.