LAHORE - Speakers at a seminar yesterday described quality and relevance as essential elements to ensure provision of vocational training, which enables youth to attain employable skills and decent careers in the job market.
The seminar titled: “Quality Vocational Training for Socio-economic Development of Pakistan” was organised by the Punjab Vocational Training Council (PVTC) in collaboration with TVET Reform Support Programme.
Besides a large number of experts and industrialists, PVTC MD Sajid Naseer Khan, Coordinator TVET Reform Support Programme Hans-Ludwig Bruns attended the seminar.
The PVTC has increased its training annual capacity from 53,600 to 134,762 trainees in pursuance of the chief minister directions under Punjab Growth Strategy. Currently 65,961 trainees have been enrolled in July 2015 admission session. 39 VTIs have been established to accommodate the additional number of trainees. 62 curriculums have been revised in 223 VTIs and updated as per industry demand.
PVTC MD Sajid Naseer Khan said that making the vocational training in line with the market demands is one of the important elements of the strategy, which PVTC is implementing since its establishment.
He said without quality and relevance, the young people can it take advantage of the skills they learn at the training institutes. To this end, he said the PVTC is introducing competency based training (CBT) training in its 32 vocational training institutes across Punjab in collaboration with TVET Reform Support Programme, which is funded by the European Union and the governments of Netherlands, Norway and Germany.
This, he said a new scheme which ensures greater involvement of the industry in the delivery of vocational training besides helping young boys and girls attain employable skills and decent career.
The introduction of CBT is an important element of the National Skills Strategy (NSS), which is the basis of the ongoing TVET sector reform in Pakistan and being supported by the European Union, the governments of Netherlands, Germany and Norway.
The duration of these new special training programmes ranges between 6-12 months. Apart from Sindh, the CBT programme is also being implemented in 84 TEVT & PVTC institutes across the country.
On the sidelines of the seminar, different vocational training institutes of PVTC had set up stalls to showcase different training courses offered by PVTC all over the province. There were 25 stalls in total where well-informed trainers, trainees and the passed out students accommodated the visitors and informed them about the significance and relevance of these courses and demand for those trained in them in the job market.
DG NAVTTC Ameer Haider, Zahir Paracha, representative of Overseas Employment, many employers and consultants participated in the seminar and shared their point of views.