Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif took part in a memorandum of understanding signing ceremony on Thursday in connection with skill training of identified children involved in child labour. The provincial Labour department and the Punjab Vocational and Training Council signed the agreement which calls for skill training of 69,000 children between 14 and 18, being identified in a child labour survey carried out by the Bureau of Statistics in 10 different districts.
The training will take six months, to be started in August. In his address, Minister Sarwar told his audience, "This training programme will play a pivotal role in eliminating child labour and poverty as trained children will be able to earn their living and degrees by institute.
Representatives of the Bureau of Statistics then talked about extending their child labour survey to 13 other districts. The ceremony was also attended by Punjab Vocational Training Council Chairman Faisal Ijaz Khan and his council Research and Development Manager, Shafqat-ur-Rehman Chaudhry, Labour Secretary Nawazish Ali, Project Director Saeed Wattoo and representatives of the Urban Unit.