If we want to produce the quality graduates, we have to do the capacity building of our teacher and equip them with the best of the teaching methodologies as the quality of human resource produced is the basis of market domination in this post-industrial information era. This was said by Minister for Higher Education Punjab Raja Yassir Humayun Sarfraz while addressing the concluding ceremony of the two-day workshop on "Outcome Based Education (OBE) and Complex Engineering Problem" here on Thursday at PHEC Secretariat Lahore.
The workshop was organized jointly by the Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) and Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) for the faculty members and industry experts selected as PEC Program Evaluators (PEVs).
Addressing the concluding session, the provincial minister said that the quality of human resource produced was the best raw material produced in the information age to invite international companies to invest in a country, "unfortunately the quality of human resource in Pakistan was not on par with international requirements, we really need work on this" International companies see Pakistan a potential investment destination only if we have that quality of human resource for which government is dedicated to working on", the Minister added.
Raja Yassir further said that there was also a need to produce the graduates with the demand and relevancy of the market. "This will bridge the industry-academia gap and enhance the career prospects for the graduates. He assured the fullest support of the government to Punjab Higher Education Commission to improve the quality of higher education and bring them on par with international standards.
Chairman PHEC Professor Dr Fazal Ahmed Khalid, at this eve, said that the fourth industrial revolution was upon us and we had to make sure that how our curricula and teaching-learning methods were updated in line with the modern requirements. "In most of the universities, we are still facing the passive mode of learning-teaching process, we have to shift towards active learning, smart classrooms, and integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) with teaching methodologies that would not only allow us to effectively communicate with students but also efficiently understand the field of complexities" the chairman emphasized.
Dr Fazal maintained that the emphasis of the two-day workshop was primarily on complex problems in engineering and to offer a platform to share case studies from the universities and the experience and expertise of faculty members. He added, "Currently there are over 500 engineering programs in 100 engineering institutions in the country; there is a big challenge of quality and accreditation, in order to meet this, our target is to train the 600 PEVs coming from various institutions, and integrate experts from the industry" .
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019