LAHORE: Punjab Labour and Human Resource Minister Raja Ashfaq Sarwar has said under the Punjab Skills Development Strategy 2018, the government is striving hard to impart skill training to the youth, keeping in mind foreign and local requirements. While presiding over a meeting of the Skill Development Committee at the Planning and Development Auditorium on Wednesday, the minister said there was greater need and scope to invest in skills programmes supported by the public sector. He stressed upon quality training in the TEVTA system, adding that the private sector could be seen as a supporting engine for improving quality of skills training. The minister said a target of skill training of two million youth till 2018 would be successfully achieved through various programmes. He said capacity building, quality assurance and good governance system had been introduced in all technical training institutes, ensuring job placement for skill graduates along with enhancing opportunities of labour export to foreign countries. He said the Punjab Vocational Training Council, Punjab Skills Development Fund and TEVTA had taken extensive steps to enhance their capacity and were on a track to meet their goals for the next six months training programme. Earlier, the meeting was informed that TEVTA had taken special initiatives by introducing Chinese language courses, offered from native teachers of Qingdao Hengzing University, for 12,300 students per year. Interest-free loans of Rs 287.866 million out of Rs 500 million had already been disbursed to 5,367 skill graduates through Akhuwat while 1,600 jail prisoners had been imparted skills through 30 training centers in three months courses, he concluded.