Azerbaijan`s President Ilham Aliyev has received a group of the youth and representatives of student youth organizations who succeeded in different areas, Azerbaijani President's official website reported.
The President said that earlier this month he signed an order on the State Program for the Azerbaijani youth, adding he instructed his Administration to prepare and submit to him a draft State Program within two months. "The program will cover the years 2011-2015. The Program must be very concrete, it must define concrete tasks." The Head of State said the Program must feature the issues "which concern the youth the most".
"Of course , the program should reflect mechanisms of performance, confirming that the program is designed not just to express some good intentions, but to aim to achieve concrete results. At the same time, the program must reflect addresses of the issues that concern the youth today. In general, a great job has been done in this direction in recent years. Today Azerbaijan`s youth are playing a very active role in the country`s public, political and economic life. They are loyal to the statehood. They are being raised in the spirit of patriotism. And it is very important," the President added.
Regarding the program, President Aliyev said it first must find a solution to the youth employment. "Our country has done much to eliminate unemployment in recent years, opened hundreds of thousands of new jobs and created new businesses. But the unemployment problem still exists, it worries us, and we should be more active to eliminate unemployment," he said.
President Aliyev said considerable work had been done to improve the youth`s social life conditions. He highlighted the issue of mortgage, stressing the importance of making it more advantageous so that it serves to create better conditions for the youth. The President also touched upon the vocational education, saying it was among the priority issues.
"The growing economic potential of Azerbaijan, the establishment of new enterprises requires skilled labor." President Aliyev stressed the necessity of "doing a big job to improve the vocational education in Azerbaijan".
"Further concrete steps should be taken to improve education in Azerbaijan . I believe these issues should also be reflected in the program, although they are mostly related to education. But the education sector is primarily associated with youth. Additional measures will be taken to educate our youth abroad. We are well aware of the prospects of our country. We know the country's economic development prospects. Training of specialists must be linked with the overall economic development of the country," Aliyev said.
With regards to physical training of youth the president said the program should cover all problems of youth .
"We should not forget about physical health. Particular attention is given to this issue. Relevant conditions are created in all regions to engage in sports. The state takes care of our athletes. All measures are taken to ensure the athletes' activities and we pursue two goals here. First, we must ensure a mass sports. This is the first question. The second question, of course, is that we must prepare professional athletes to enhance athletic glory of Azerbaijan. Great successes are achieved in this regard. In addition, it serves to strengthening patriotism among young people and society as a whole. At a time when the Azerbaijani flag is raised in the international competitions, representative contests, it makes us feel proud. We are proud that our athletes, our teams return with a victory from the international arena," President Aliyev noted.
Aliyev said a military training must occupy a special place in the program. "This is a very important question for us. We live in a time of war, our lands are under occupation. We should be ready to liberate our land and restore its territorial integrity at any time. We strive to resolve the issue through diplomatic ways. However, our military capabilities has a positive impact including on diplomatic negotiations, and we are already observing this," he added.
Speakers at the meeting thanked the President for signing the order on the State Youth Program, and made their proposals.
The youth have expressed their suggestions concerning the preparation of the State Program. The speakers also voiced their views and suggestions on the improvement of training in vocational schools, as well as on the state support to the development of various scientific and technical organizations to meet the needs of professional technical personnel with advanced knowledge and skills, encouraging the young entrepreneurs to create a new generation of managers, issues of teaching staff in the higher education institutions, attraction of young people, who finished their studies abroad, to teaching in universities, addressing social issues of youth, youth's role in resolving the Armenian -Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, etc.
The Head of State said all the proposals will be highlighted in the Program.
President Aliyev touched upon the youth`s role in settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He said likewise all members of the society the Azerbaijani youth should serve to strengthen their country, and every young man should increase efforts - within his scope - to promote Azerbaijan`s just cause on the Karabakh problem.
The President reiterated Azerbaijan`s position on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He stressed the conflict could be solved only on the basis of international legal norms and the principle of Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity.
Following the meeting the President posed for photographs together with its participants.
Photo - The official website of the President of Azerbaijan
