Framework for Economic Growth, Pakistan - Planning Commission

International conference on “Framework for Economic Growth, Pakistan”enable them to engage in social actionprogrammes in communities. We havetrained facilitators all over the country. Weare working on training more facilitators ofsome new partner organizations. We havedone a lot of work across Pakistan underactive citizenship programme. We plan toexpand that network to mobilize youth towork for society.***Discussant: Faisal MushtaqExecutive Director, Roots School System, PakistanFirst of all I would like to thank Dr. NadeemUl Haque and congratulate and complimenthim for sponsoring the change that wewanted to see serve. Inviting young peopleat this forum discussing and debating thegrowth strategy is by itself a testament to thecommitment of the Planning Commission.To me the single problem to help and sustainthe youth and community engagement isthrough education. Without a viable,relevant and public education system wecan’t implicate the values of the communityeducation, civic education and citizenshipeducation. Without sponsoring community,civic and citizenship values we can’t createa viable society which has both the desireand determination for sustainable socialimpact. Process of education starts from thecurriculum. The gap between public andprivate education system also needs to belooked after. To create opportunities weneed citizen based programmes- like BritishCouncil and Ibrar Ul Haque’s foundation isdoing in Pakistan. Such forums create aninert-generation engagement, civicengagement; and democratic and socialdevelopment planning. Through educationwe can create employment for theengagement of youth.Engagement means connectivity to helpengage the youth in value added activities sothat they can create and help sponsoring thechange in their provinces, districts, tehsilsetc. Without a viable and progressivenational public education system it would bevery difficult to create social andentrepreneurship values to help masses,provide them skills, and understand theirpotential. If we want to have citizens inaction then the debate is that how state isgoing to provide them opportunities to servethe state, especially the youth? It can workboth ways. It is duty of the state to engageyouth and communities in their personaldevelopment and create opportunities forthem. Thus education, employment,engagement, empowerment andentrepreneurship will create a viable andscalable socio-economic impact. We need todevelop a new education system to meetchallenges of 21 st century and promote thevalue of community education. 68.8% of thePakistan’s population is under the age of 30,63.3% is under the age of 25 and 28% are inage group of 15 to 25. 50% of the economyis service economy and 8.3% is the level ofentrepreneurship outside agriculture sector.We need workable and sustainable solutionsfor youth connectivity and engagement.***79