The first meeting of the working committee on Human Resources Development for SMEs was held in the committee room of PIDC House under the chairmanship of Shahzad Alam.
According to a press release issued by the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda) issued here on Friday, the meeting was in connection with the SME Policy 2005 project initiated by Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority of the Ministry of Industries and Production. Representatives from different stakeholders participated in the meeting.
Shahzad Alam introduced the broad objectives of the SME Policy in Pakistan, while Farhana Mowjee who co-chaired the meeting emphasised the need for an effective and efficient institutional mechanism to cater to HRD needs of SMEs.
Nabeel Goheer briefed the participants about the four broad areas of SME policy and the way Smeda was working on this issue of national importance.
The committee during its daylong deliberations identified quality of technical training, curriculum development, institutional co-ordination, lack of institution-industry linkages, affordability and training of trainers as the major issues.
It was decided that an expert group will study the international best proactive in this area whose findings will be presented in the next meeting. All participants were requested to come up with 3 to 4 tangible policy proposals in the next meeting that would be discussed and consolidated to prepare a national policy paper that would be discussed in a national consultative workshop to be held in September 2004.
The chair at the end emphasised that the policy document would include an action plan and monitoring and evaluation mechanism to ensure its implementation.