FAISALABAD: Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) and Beaconhouse International College Faisalabad (BHICF) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance industry-academia linkages, placement of internees, encouragement of young start-ups and promotion of entrepreneurship qualities among young students.
Sardar Ahmad Raza, Rector BHICF visited FCCI along with his team and discussed issues of mutual interest. Atif Munir Sheikh, President FCCI briefed him about the role of the business community in the overall promotion and development of Faisalabad.
He said that he had initiated collaborative efforts to give a quantum jump to the national exports by encouraging innovation through industry-academia linkages.
“I personally visited leading universities of this burgeoning city including NTU, UAF and GCU”, he said and added that he had detailed discussions with their vice chancellors.
He said that all these institutions are duty bound to send their graduates for three-month internships before issuing them degrees. The vice chancellors complained that FCCI was not providing access to their students to the industrial units for their mandatory internship.
“We prepared TOR and SOPs to accommodate the internees in different institutions”, said president, adding that FCCI arranged one of the most successful Pakistan Economic Conference with the active help and participation of internees from NTU, LUMS and GCU.
“Yet another team of internees undertook FCCI loyalty card programme”, he said and told that they interacted with 19 leading industrial and commercial entities to provide subsidized services and products to the FCCI members and their families.
FCCI chief said that generally our students depend on secondary data collected from books or downloaded from Google. He said that primary data is most important in critically analyzing situations but to get it students or interns have to work in the field.
He said that 52 different sectors are directly linked with FCCI and we are in a position to provide hands-on training to internees in these fields. Atif Munir Sheikh said that many textile units are manufacturing for world known brands but most of purchase orders from America and EU were cancelled due to the recent recession.
“This situation forced them to close down their units”, he said and suggested that we must encourage and convince them to launch their own made in Pakistan brands to survive in such conditions in future. “Our own brands would also help in projecting the soft image of Pakistan at the global level”, he added.
Sardar Ahmad Raza, Rector BHICF expressed satisfaction that FCCI and BHICF are on the same page in respect of industry-academia linkages.
He said that a list of young start-ups and internees would be provided to the FCCI for their internship while he himself would supervise the support of academia required to them for the accomplishment of their practical assignments at FCCI.
He said that BHICF would not charge any admission fee while a 15% discount in tuition fee would be allowed to the children of FCCI members under this MoU.
Muhammad Azhar Chaudhary, Dr Habib Aslam Gaba, Rashid Munir, Hooria Zafar, Madam Hafsa Najam and Siba Ameen were also present during this event. Later President FCCI Atif Munir Sheikh and Rector BHICF Sardar Ahmad Raza signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organizations.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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