Filling a dangerous void

In a major policy initiative to revamp the vocational and technical training infrastructure, President Musharraf has approved a roadmap to improve the quality and quantum of workforce being produced in the country in order to synergies the availability of skilled manpower with the demands of a rapidly expanding industrial base.
The escalating shortage of skilled manpower in various sectors of the economy has precipitated the current crunch. Speaking at a meeting of NAVTEC, the President rightly said that we must harmonise the skills of our younger generation with their economic potential in the environment they belong to.
The steady depletion of trained workforce in the country, occasioned by a tendency among skilled workers to migrate to greener pastures abroad, has adversely impacted the pace of industrial expansion and productivity in the country - a trend that can only be reversed by initiating new training programmes for workers.
The government plans to train around one million people in public and private sector institutions by 2010 to meet the rapidly expanding demand for skilled labour. The total annual cost of enhancing professional capacity of 142,000 to 300,000 people within three years has been estimated at Rs 2.960 billion, but it will be an investment worth making.
Under the roadmap unveiled by the President, the revamping of technical and vocational training would be carried out by providing better training facilities, competent faculty and equipment at these institutions.
The extent of exodus of trained Pakistani manpower can be gauged from the fact that as many as 173,824 workers went abroad to seek employment in 2004 while another 142,135 left the country in 2005.
This means that the country lost 315,959 productive and skilled workers in just two years! The exodus of educated and trained manpower has already generated a dangerous void in Pakistan's labour market, thereby adversely impacting the long-term prospects of our economic recovery. The role of foreign remittances as a short-term stabiliser of economy cannot be denied, but these short-term gains are more than neutralised when viewed in the long-term perspective of the country's industrial growth.
The dark underside of manpower export is the brain drain that has exacted a horrendous price in terms of national productivity. It goes to the credit of visionary leaderships of economic powerhouses of the world that they had focused on creating an educated and trained manpower, and then made its fullest use to develop their industrial base.
China and India today are reckoned as the rising industrial giants, posing a formidable challenge even to the industrialised West. Japan has created for itself a highly respectable place in the world of the 21st century. With the advent of a globalise market economy, the role of a sound industrial base and skilled and educated manpower has assumed unprecedented importance.
Compared to other countries, Pakistan ranks way below in human resource development. This has been due largely to the short-term and self-serving priorities of Pakistan's power brokers. Instead of laying foundations of a viable industrial base for achieving long-term economic goals, we have been pursuing a policy of short-term, and short-sighted, gains.
This policy of adhocism and our leaders' quest for such "quick fixes" as manpower export and foreign aid as a substitute for enhanced industrial productivity, has indeed kept us afloat, but at the cost of our long-term economic interests.
However, it is better late than never. The President's policy decision to revamp the vocational and technical training infrastructure to improve the quality and quantum of workforce being produced in the country is a commendable move that needs to be appreciated. The government should also enhance the overall budgetary allocation for education, as education is the gateway to all progress and development.