The Punjab government has set aside Rs 2.3 billion to promote technical education and vocational training across the province in the Annual Development Programme 2008-09.
The Tevta, in line with the government policies, has launched 5th phase of Tevta Special Training Program (TSTP) to train another lot of 25,000 workers under three months short courses program at designated Tevta institutes across the province.
Tevta Acting Chairman Muhammad Arshad Bhatti stated this while addressing a meeting of the district managers at Tevta Zonal Office here on Monday. General Manager (Operations) Tanvir A. Zaffar, Zonal Manager (North) Muhammad Rashid and other officers were also present.
Bhatti said that Rs 1,351.029 million would be spent on completing 51 ongoing schemes and Rs 948.971 million would be spent on initiating 34 new schemes. Out of 34 new schemes, seven are from technical stream, 22 from vocational and one from commerce stream in addition to four miscellaneous, including labour market information system.
He said the increase of 360 percent in the allocation of ADP budget 2008-09 reflected the government's priority and its vision to enhance global competitiveness through production of qualitative workforce by developing demand-driven, standardised, dynamic, and integrated technical education and vocational training systems across the province.
Tevta under the special training programme (TSTP) has already trained 76,000 semi-skilled workers in the last year. Most of them have either been employed by the private sector or self-employed and are making their livelihood successfully. This semi-skilled workforce has been trained in four phases of three months duration short courses in different demand-driven trades as per requirement of the industry during one year, he said. After getting fruitful results of TSTP, Tevta has launched fifth phase of the special training programme (TSTP).
"It will help in meeting the demand for skilled workers and also enhance the employability of the youth belonging to lower income group of society," he said. "Our all programmes are market-oriented and youths are being trained in employable skills. We have also developed a system for the placement of our pass-outs according to the level of their learning. Maximum numbers of Tevta pass-outs are adjusted in the local industry. A handsome number of Tevta trained youths have also been absorbed in the private sector," he added.