On April 11, under the chairmanship of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, a videoconference meeting on measures to improve the effectiveness of work carried out in the field of youth policy was held.
According to the press service of the head of state, today there are officially 722,000 unemployed young people in the country.
In order to organize more accurate and targeted work with youth, a study of 9 million young people aged 14 to 30 years was carried out. At the same time, for the first time, data from 25 ministries and departments are integrated into a single database. The social status, abilities and interests were studied, measures were identified to introduce the mechanism of work “from the mahalla to the ministry”.
At the meeting, priority attention was paid to the problems of unemployed youth, as well as young people employed in the informal sector or those who have gone to work abroad. The head of state put forward a number of new initiatives in this direction. In particular, it was emphasized that in order to ensure youth employment, it is necessary first of all to revise the employment system.
For example, there are currently 254,000 vacancies in over 103,000 organizations. However, last year more than 6,000 boys and girls who graduated from higher educational institutions and 30,000 boys and girls who graduated from colleges and technical schools could not find work. In this regard, from now on, each ministry will independently determine the qualification requirements for professions in the supervised sectors. Also, the ministries will not only give orders for the training of personnel in institutions of higher and secondary specialized education, but also develop training programs together with them.
In 2021, the practice of returning social tax to enterprises that hired young people under the age of 25 was introduced. Over the past period, more than 9,000 enterprises have taken advantage of this opportunity and 100,000 young people have been employed. The head of state instructed to extend the preference for another two years. A decision was made to create a fund and an electronic platform “Initiatives of the youth of New Uzbekistan”. The fund will be allocated $100 million, which will go to the best ideas, start-ups and projects of talented youth on convenient and preferential terms, if necessary, without interest.
Based on the experience of IT parks, creative parks will also be created in the regions. They will be subject to benefits and preferences provided to residents of IT parks. It was noted that when allocating funds from the Youth Notebook fund, priority should be given to vocational training and employment. In this regard, it was decided to create the possibility of simultaneous use of several related services through the fund.
Youth in need of state support will be assigned by name to each minister, his deputy, governor of regions, districts and cities, head of the sector, rector, commander of the National Guard and military units. They will support the vocational training and employment of young people, help them in obtaining loans, subsidies and guarantees. At the meeting, the issues of the meaningful organization of free time for young people were also considered. In a recent survey of over 100,000 young people, respondents indicated a lack of opportunities for sports and entertainment.
In this regard, the task was set to organize round-the-clock youth parks, at the first stage in regional centers, and later in the districts. They will create conditions for sports, e-sports and intellectual games, reading, karaoke. Also, youth festivals, creative streets, as well as sports leagues, co-working spaces and theater studios in universities will be organized in each district.
Today, 1.5 million young people devote their free time to learning a foreign language. To further stimulate this interest among young people, subsidies will be made available for language studies at private centres. At the meeting, a number of tasks were identified to equip circles in schools and support trainers, increase the efficiency of the work of children’s centers “Barkamol avlod”. The Olympiad of Professions will be held among young people.
However, it was noted at the meeting that the scope and effectiveness of spiritual and educational activities are insufficient, while the interests of young people are not taken into account. In this regard, it was instructed to improve the activities of the center of spirituality and enlightenment, build up content aimed at protecting young people from ideological threats. In general, for the effective organization of state policy in this area, the program “Youth of New Uzbekistan” and amendments to the legislation will be developed. The President emphasized that work with youth is the most important task of all leaders, the general public, and the whole society.
Reports of ministers and governors were heard on the issues discussed at the meeting.
