Quality education, suitable job opportunities for next generation top priority: Zahid Durrani.

ISLAMABAD -- National Assembly Deputy Speaker Zahid Akram Durrani on Tuesday said the provision of quality education and suitable employment opportunities to the next generation would be the top priority in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) meeting agenda.

Addressing the Asia-Pacific Seminar on Quality Education and Decent Work for Youth, he said regional parliamentary institutions should work together for the provision of quality education, public-private partnership and access to technology.

He said almost every country in the Asia-Pacific region had satisfactory access to primary education. However, some countries were still unable to provide quality and equal educational opportunities to their youth.

He urged the parliaments to achieve such goals, underlining that education for the youth would help meet the demand of the market.

International Labor Organization Programme Officer Rabia Razak, in her address, said the digital economy needed to focus to achieve economic development. For quality education, students living in remote areas should also have equal Internet access, she added.

Different participants, in their remarks, said the youth constituted majority of the world's population as more than 600 million youth aged 15 to 24 lived in Asia and the Pacific region and their contributions were critical to the region's productivity and inclusive development.

They said the young people playd a leading role in the development and had been pioneers in presenting solutions to some of the most pressing development challenges through the development of technological tools and media solutions.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the youth in the Asia-Pacific region faced more...