PESHAWAR: The provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has formally launched the second phase of the Accelerated Skills Development Programme (ASDP), a major project to impart free skills and technical training and professional courses to the youth and women of the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA).
The training of 302 men and women has been completed in the first phase of this important project with the support of the programme initiated under the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with MAGP (Merged Areas Governance Project) and now in the second phase, a batch of 445 people is being imparted training under the three-year project with a monthly stipend of 5,000.
In this connection a one-day workshop was organized here in a local hotel wherein Khalid Usman, Project Director of the programme officials of the Department of Industries and Commerce, representatives of UNDP’s MAGP programmes, industrial experts, journalists and other people from the school of thought participated.
The participants of the workshop were told that about 5500 people will be equipped with the necessary skills and technical training in this three-year project for the development of merged districts.
Addressing the participants of the workshop, Project Director of the programme, Khalid Usman said that the aim of this three-year project is to train the youth of the adjoining districts according to international standards in the best training institutions of the country and the province. They are also being paid a monthly stipend under training. He said that about 5577 applications were received by the project unit for the second phase.
On this occasion, the UNDP representatives said that after the merger of this important project for the tribal districts, for the real development of the erstwhile Fata and a regular research survey has also been started in this regard.
He said that this is a very useful and important project to make the youth of the merged districts self-employed. He said that more similar programmes are under consideration under the MAGP project of UNDP for the merged districts under the Department of Industries.
In his address, industrialist Muhammad Umair expressed his opinion and said that the ASDP programme is a successful project for the development of the merged districts.
He said that in foreign countries, the proportion of the people trained from such training programmes is 70% although here, 40% rate is considered as a basis for starting employment under this programme. The employability rate of the people trained in the programme is expected to be 70%.
In the workshop, a question and answer session were also held and documentaries were also shown regarding the youth who started employment after training in the first phase of the programme.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023