New opportunities for young people

On April 11, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev chaired a videoconference on measures to improve the effectiveness of work carried out in youth policy.

There are more than 19 million young people under the age of 30 in Uzbekistan. They make up 55 percent of the population. Now every year 600,000 young people enter the labor market, and in the next 10 years, this number will reach 1 million.

Therefore, special attention is paid to ensuring quality education, training, and employment of young people. A vertical management system was created to organize these works at the mahalla level. Youth leaders, from among selfless and enterprising young people, have been appointed in 9.5 thousand mahallas. Through this system, more than 100 opportunities have been created for young people, and targeted support has been established.

For example, last year alone, loans worth 4 trillion UZS were allocated for youth entrepreneurship, 150,000 projects were launched, and 325,000 jobs were created. 43,000 hectares of sown land have been allocated and 435,000 young people have been employed. More than 32,000 have purchased equipment, tools and computers through subsidies.

Significant work is being carried out in social support. In particular, last year 1.7 trillion UZS of educational loans were issued to 130,000 students, and the education of women in the magistracy became free. 53,000 low-income students received financial assistance to pay for a contract for education, 15,000 young people – to cover the costs associated with military service, and 13,000 – to study a foreign language. 81,000 students received compensation for paying rent. Through the “Youth Notebook”, 300,000 youth received assistance for about 600 billion UZS.

But there are still many pressing issues that need to be addressed in the sphere. Today there are officially 722,000 unemployed young people in the country.

A study of 9 million young people aged 14 to 30 years was carried out to organize more accurate and targeted work with youth. At the same time, data from 25 ministries and agencies are integrated into a single database for the first time. The social status, abilities, and interests were studied, and measures were defined to introduce the mechanism of work “from the mahalla to the ministry”.

At the meeting, the main 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 several new initiatives in this direction.

In particular, it was emphasized that it is necessary first of all to revise the employment system to ensure youth employment.

For example, there are 254,000 vacancies in over 103,000 organizations. However, last year more than 6,000 boys and girls who graduated from higher education 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 training personnel in institutions of higher and secondary special education, but also develop training programs together with them.

As is known, 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 effect of the preference for another two years.

A decision was made to create a fund and an electronic platform “Youth Initiatives 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”, 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, hokim of regions, districts, and cities, head of the sector, rector, and commander of the National Guard and military units. They will support the vocational training and employment of the wards, helping 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. 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 centers.

At the meeting, several tasks were defined to equip centers 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.

In the current era of globalization, threats to the education and consciousness of young people are increasing. Our ancestor, educator Abdulla Avloni noted: “The happiness of every nation depends on the good education of youth”.

It was noted that the scope and effectiveness of spiritual and enlightenment 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 Spirituality and Enlightenment Center, to increase content aimed at protecting young people from ideological threats.

In general, the program “New Uzbekistan Youth” and amendments to the legislation will be developed for the effective organization of state policy in this sphere.

The President emphasized that working with youth is the most important task of all leaders, the general public, and the entire society.

Reports of ministers and hokims were heard on the issues discussed at the meeting.