Technical education plays an important role in reducing unemployment from a country. Its importance can be judged from the fact that all East Asian countries that are today referred to as 'Asian miraclesMalaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan were economically poor and unstable a few decades ago. They all achieved their present enviable social and economic development through a strategic concentration on education, more specifically on technical education. In Pakistan, though, technical education has never been given the importance it deserves. Our entire focus is on theoretical education and so our institutions of learning produce only unskilled youth destined to remain on rolls of the unemployed. Looking at the widespread unemployment in the country that has reached an alarming situation now, we urgently need to open sufficient number of technical institutions that could teach arts and crafts to this huge army of unemployed youth. That is the only way we could enable our idle young to earn a livelihood and be useful citizens of the society. -ABDUL SAMAD SAMO, Kara-chi, July 12.