Chief Minister Sindh Dr Arbab Rahim has eulogised the contribution of Pakistan Army for the cause of nation-building and said that the establishment of CMH Lahore Medical College and Lahore Institute of Technical Education (LITE) are the landmark projects.
He was speaking as chief guest at the second certificate award ceremony of Lahore Institute of Technical Education here on Saturday. Provincial Minister of Technical Education and Industries Punjab Ajmal Cheema, Minister of Labour and Human Resource Punjab Rana Muhammad Qasim Noon, Executive Director NAVTEC Shahid Rashid, President Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry Shahid Hassan Sheikh and senior military and civil officials of Lahore also attended the event.
Dr Arbab Rahim said that the establishment of LITE within a record time speaks amply of the dedication and commitment of Corps Commander Lahore, Lieut General Shafaat Ullah Shah, who apart from his professional duties was working in all earnest for the progress and prosperity of the country.
Speaking on the occasion, Corps Commander Lahore, Lieut General Shafaat Ullah Shah, who is also the Chairman of Lahore Institute of Technical Education said that the strength of any country depended largely on its human resource. He said that it was always the manpower equipped with technical knowledge and skills that provided the country a solid economic base. He said that the countries like Malaysia, China, Korea and Japan were some of the living examples in this regard.
He said that although Pakistan is blessed with a tremendous reservoir of human resource but we are only lagging behind in the comity of nations due to dearth of appropriate technical knowledge imparting institutions. He said that presently there were only 1373 technical institutes functioning in the country, out of which 756 were in Punjab with 72 in Lahore. He said there was an urgent need to do much more in this field as this would not only bridge the gap of unemployment but contribute significantly towards poverty alleviation in the country.
The Corps Commander said that Pakistan could only fight the forces of obscurantism and extremism that are eating into the vitals of the country through provision of better technical education and employment opportunities to its people.
He said that conscious efforts are being made to enrol maximum students from the smaller provinces to provide equal opportunity to them in availing this facility. He specifically appreciated the inclusion of 10 students from Dera Bugti Balochistan, 31 students from Fata, 14 from Sindh, 39 from Azad Kashmir while 275 boys and 86 girls students from Punjab. He said that these steps were being taken in consonance with our national desire to further promote and strengthen provincial harmony and national integration.
He said that efforts were on to impart objective-oriented training in almost 19 different disciplines. He said that almost 60 percent of the students of the total 455 have already been provided jobs on completion of their courses. The management, he said, has managed to procure the ISO-9001 certificate this year. Minister for Labour Rana Qasim Noon also announced the jobs for 50 students on the occasion.
In accordance with the vision of President Pervez Musharraf to promote technical education and reduce poverty through job creation, Lahore Corps has taken a commendable and positive step in establishing Lahore Institute of Technical Education (LITE) to train low and medium level work force. A number of foreign job catching courses have also been planned.