Chairman Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA) Irfan Qaiser Sheikh has said that TEVTA has become largest organization in South Asia providing technical education to more than 200,000 students annually. While addressing the representatives of business community at TEVTA Secretariat here on Wednesday, Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said that in last three years, TEVTA has increased its annual enrollment from 50,000 graduates to 200,000 graduates which is one of the largest among South Asian countries.
He said that for achieving this milestone, when he joined TEVTA, he ordered to spend the money on human resource. That huge budget was earlier being spent on construction of new buildings. He said that that now a days these already constructed buildings are being used for training of students.
Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said that he had shifted TEVTA's courses from long term courses to short term courses by following the model of technical education of developed countries including Japan, Germany and many others. He said that now TEVTA is offering 52 short courses in various respective fields as per the need and demand of the industry.
Besides increase in number of graduates and number of short courses, the ratio of students getting job has also improved in these three years, he said. Irfan also explained that when there are markets oriented courses, than the industry inevitably hires the student having certificate of the related courses. This also increased the trust of parents and students which are also a basic reason that number of graduates was increases in last three years, Chairman TEVTA said.
He said that recently introduced Chinese Language Course has become the flagship course of TEVTA which is being offered free of cost in more than 25 districts across the largest populated province of the country. At this three month Chinese courses, Chinese master trainers are teaching the enrolled people belonged to all ages as there is no such specialized age limit for this course, he informed the members of business community.
Chairman observed that among successful courses, the IT course had been done by 30,000 students as this was being offered in collaboration with world renowned software company Microsoft. He said that in next year, this number will be increased up to 60,000.
Talking about quality, he said that TEVTA not only focused on quantity but the quality too as it collaborated with several international organizations and foreign companies which not only provided financial assistance but also helped in increasing the teacher's training, course designing, setting of center of excellence and new buildings of colleges. These organizations included Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TIKA), GIZ of Germany, USAID, Microsoft, globally acclaimed City and Guilds and many such others.