A degree, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann told graduating students on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, is not a piece of paper — it is a certificate that turns dreams into reality. Speaking at the 14th Convocation of I.K. Gujral Punjab Technical University (IKGPTU) in Kapurthala, Mann distributed degrees to graduates and used the platform to deliver a sharp message to young Punjab: the goal is not to seek jobs, but to create them.

The 14th Convocation at Kapurthala's flagship technical university

I.K. Gujral Punjab Technical University, named after the former Prime Minister and Punjabi statesman, is the state's premier technical institution, anchoring engineering, management and applied sciences education from its Kapurthala campus. The 14th Convocation marks another cohort formally crossing the threshold from study to professional life — a moment Mann chose to frame not as an endpoint but as a starting pistol.

In his address, the Chief Minister declared — 'ਸਾਡਾ ਟੀਚਾ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦੇ ਨੌਜਵਾਨਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਨੌਕਰੀਆਂ ਮੰਗਣ ਵਾਲੇ ਨਹੀਂ, ਸਗੋਂ ਨੌਕਰੀਆਂ ਵੰਡਣ ਵਾਲੇ ਬਣਾਉਣਾ ਹੈ' — 'Our goal is to make Punjab's youth not job seekers, but job providers.' It is a line that has become a signature of the Aam Aadmi Party government's higher-education messaging since it came to power in March 2022.

Entrepreneurship over employment — the AAP education pivot

The emphasis is not accidental. AAP's 2022 Punjab election manifesto explicitly committed to reorienting higher education away from the traditional salaried-job pipeline and toward entrepreneurship and self-reliance. Since then, convocation addresses by Mann have consistently linked degree distribution to job creation — a rhetorical bridge between classroom achievement and state economic ambition.

The approach draws consciously from the Delhi model of education reform that AAP pioneered before replicating it in Punjab: invest in government institutions, raise aspirational benchmarks, and publicly celebrate achievers. Mann closed the address by calling education and sports the twin keys to Punjab's golden future — 'ਪੜ੍ਹਾਈ ਅਤੇ ਖੇਡਾਂ ਹੀ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦੇ ਸੁਨਹਿਰੇ ਭਵਿੱਖ ਦੀ ਕੁੰਜੀ ਹਨ' — and signed off with the rallying call Inquilab Zindabad ('Long live the revolution').

What the graduating class now inherits

For the new degree holders, the message carries both inspiration and expectation. Punjab's youth unemployment challenge is real, and state technical universities are increasingly under pressure to produce graduates who generate economic activity rather than compete for a finite pool of government posts. Whether fresh incubation schemes or skill-linkage programmes follow this convocation address will be the true measure of intent — something to watch in the next Punjab assembly session's budget deliberations on technical education.

For now, Mann congratulated every new degree holder warmly — 'ਉੱਜਵਲ ਭਵਿੱਖ ਲਈ ਬਹੁਤ-ਬਹੌਤ ਮੁਬਾਰਕਾਂ' ('Heartiest congratulations for a bright future') — and left Kapurthala with a message that the stage is not the last podium these graduates will stand on. It is, if the government's ambition holds, just the first.