Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday directed the National Vocational and Technical Education Commission (Navtec) to submit a comprehensive programme to put in place plans for technical education and vocational training system to produce a million skilled workers annually by 2010.
Presiding over a meeting at the Prime Minister Secretariat to review the Navtec policy and plan, Shaukat Aziz called for submitting the plan within six to eight weeks.
He pointed at the widening gap between industry and training institutes and the inability of training institutes to keep pace with emerging technologies, due to lack of skilled manpower.
The Prime Minister said there was an imbalance between supply and demand of skilled workers and called for the need to initiate short, medium and long-term training programmes to produce high quality trained manpower in priority areas.
Shaukat Aziz said Navtec will be an apex body for formulating policy and providing support and regulatory framework.
He asked the commission to take immediate steps to identify local and global demands and initiate need-based training programmes to bridge the skilled manpower gap for local consumption and overseas employment.
The Prime Minister asked the Navtec to provide cluster-focused training by particularly focusing on nursing and paramedics, construction industry, hospitality and transport sectors and telephone operators, owing to the great demand.
He also directed Navtec to maintain gender balance, ensure quality of training programmes, hire experts from local and foreign markets as trainers, use the facilities of existing public and private sector institutions and strengthen capacity of existing public sector institutions,
Shaukat Aziz also directed that all training programmes be properly advertised in the national media to make selections on merit and said stipend will be awarded to every trainee.
He agreed to a suggestion that special cells be created in the offices of Chief Ministers to co-ordinate the skills' development training. Navtec chairman Salim Altaf in his presentation said in phase-I the commission would develop database of existing facilities and work focus.
He said the five-year implementation programme includes development of skills' standards, curriculum development and course design, public-private partnership projects, public sector expansion, developing performance assessment parameters, international linkages and effective monitoring and evaluation.
Comments
Comments are closed.