ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s economic future was linked to imparting technical and vocational education and training to youth for accelerating economic growth and NAVTTC was taking many initiatives to realize this objective, said Zulfiqar Ahmed Cheema, Executive Director, National Vocational & Technical Training Commission of Pakistan.

He was addressing a seminar at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry organized to create awareness in the business community about the role of NAVTTC in promoting vocational and technical education in the country. Naeem Siddiqui, Director General Islamabad Region and Zubair Hashmi Director General Admin & Finance, NAVTTC were also present at the occasion.

He said NAVTTC was providing policy direction, regulation and coordination to Technical & Vocational Education Training (TVET) sector in the country. Highlighting key initiatives of his organization, he said NAVTTC has now adopted a proactive approach and developed a National Skills Strategy to produce demand-driven technical manpower in the country. NAVTTC was now shifting to competency-based trainings to improve the employability of trained workforce. He said a database of 0.7 million trained and skilled youth covering various trades has been developed and uploaded on NAVTTC web portal and employers could use this databank to recruit persons of desired trade.

He said a Job Placement Centre has been established at NAVTTC Headquarters and such Centres will also be established at provincial and divisional levels for better placement of skilled and trained youth in public and private sectors. He said National Training Bureau has been merged with NAVTTC and it would be converted into a world class training institute so that its trainees could be accepted throughout the world. He said NAVTTC’s job portal was linked with the websites of major chambers of commerce and ICCI should also link this portal at its website for the benefit of its members. He said private sector including SMEs should share requirement of trained manpower so that NAVTTC could design training programs to produce skilled workers of desired trades.

Speaking at the occasion, Sheikh Pervez Ahmed, Senior Vice President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that around 65 percent of our population was comprised of youth and it was essential to provide quality technical education and training to youngsters to enhance their employability in private sector as public sector could not create required jobs for youth. He said the aimless education was pushing the youth towards a directionless journey and the best way to make them productive manpower was to focus on their skills development and technical training. He said Europe and developed countries achieved fast economic growth by producing skilled and trained workforce and NAVTTC should replicate this model in Pakistan to achieve same results.

He said 80 percent trainings were provided in industries in the West with 20 percent in technical institutes. He said NAVTTC should develop strong liaison with local industry to provide on-the-job trainings to youth that would increase their placement in industry. He assured that ICCI would fully cooperate with NAVTTC in realizing these goals.