World Youth Skills Day: Punjab allocated Rs 26 bln for skills development and entrepreneurship

World Youth Skills Day is celebrated Tuesday (today) globally to spotlight the transformative power of technical and vocational education in building inclusive economies and resilient societies while the Punjab government has also focused on it by allocating Rs 26 billion in fiscal year 2025-26. Following the vison of the Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the Government of Punjab has placed skills at the heart of its economic agenda. Under the CM Skilled Punjab initiative, landmark programmes are in placed as Rs 26 billion are allocated for skills development and entrepreneurship for the fiscal year 2025-26 Furthermore, for the first time Punjab has consolidated all TVET policy under a single Skills Development and Entrepreneurship Department (SDED)—bringing Punjab Skills Development Fund (PSDF), Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA), Punjab Vocational Training Council (PVTC), Punjab Skills Development Authority (PSDA) and Punjab Board of Technical Education (PBTE) under one strategic umbrella to ensure every effort is aligned with labour-market demand. The Punjab Skills Development Fund (PSDF)- Pakistan’s largest skills fund and the implementing arm of CM Skilled Punjab Initiative has spent 15 years building employer-led training pathways. In that time, it has enabled 600,000 graduates (44 percent women) across 250 trades. Current flagships programs include PSDF | Tabeer – International Placement of Rs 2.7 billion for 2,500+ global job placement, PSDF | Mein Digital- Empowering rural women through IT of Rs 1billion for 3,000 educated rural women and PSDF | Pehchan- Skill Development Program for Transgenders for Rs 870 million for 2,250 marginalized transgenders, each designed to unlock new segments of talent and link them to high-value local or overseas work. CM Punjab Task Force for Skills Development Chairperson Punjab, Adnan Afzal Chattha Monday stated that Punjab’s young people are not just our future. They are our greatest present-day asset. By pairing world-class training with globally recognised certifications and overseas job pathways, we are turning potential into prosperity for families and for Pakistan’s balance of payments,” said Nadir Chattha, Secretary, Skills Development and Entrepreneurship Department said that for the first time in Punjab’s history, every element of skills development policy-making, funding, standards, training and placement – now sits under a single roof. What was once a devolved, fragmented mandate spread across multiple agencies is unified in the Skills Development & Entrepreneurship Department with a primary focus on making Pakistan a global human capital export powerhouse. “This one-window structure gives us the speed, coherence and accountability to turn every rupee into real jobs, higher incomes and a workforce that can compete anywhere in the world”, he added. Across Pakistan there are 3,000+ technical and vocational institutes with about 455,000 students enrolled—a capacity nowhere near sufficient for the 1.7 million new entrants to the labour force each year, underscoring the urgency of scalable, outcome-based models like PSDF’s. On World Youth Skills Day, PSDF and the Government of Punjab reaffirm their commitment to equip every young Pakistani with the skills, confidence and global credentials needed to thrive at home and abroad in fields of their choosing; and to position Pakistan as a preferred source of skilled talent worldwide.