Technical education in 12,000 Punjab schools

[Naveed Yaseen]

PUNJAB Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif has said that the government is committed to promoting technical education in the province and effective measures are being taken to produce maximum manpower, which will play its role in the progress of the country besides earning foreign exchange abroad.

Presiding over a meeting held for the promotion of technical education at the Chief MinisterÕs Secretariat here on Friday, he said the Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (Tevta) would be activated and its curriculum would be harmonised to the latest demands, keeping in view the needs of the industrial institutions. He directed the officials concerned to formulate comprehensive recommendations for modernising the curriculum and promoting technical education and submit them within 10 days. He said uplift of quality technical education should be the only focal point of the recommendations.

The chief minister said the promotion of technical education was necessary for the development of the province. He said Tevta would have to be reorganised in regard in order to achieve the desired results by improving its performance. He said that keeping in view the importance of technical education, the authority was established in 1998 and was given it an autonomous status. He said that 50 per cent increase had been made in Tevta funds during the current year.

Shahbaz said the aim of pooling different departments at one platform was promotion of quality technical education in the province while saving the resources to set up a prestigious institution. He said the experts and prominent industrialists had been included in the board of Tevta so that measures could be taken for reforms in the institution according to the latest demands. He directed the officials concerned to make arrangements for the provision of vocational training to the students of 5,000 secondary and 7,000 middle schools of the province along with general education, saying the schools could play the role of a nursery in the promotion of technical education.

The chief minister said Tevta should improve its standard and run all the institutions under its control on modern lines, acquiring services of experts from foreign countries like Germany, Sweden, France and China. He said he would hold negotiations with the ambassadors of different countries to get their cooperation in promotion of technical education.

The Chief Minister said that we have to materialize the dream of promotion of technical education and utilize all the available resource for this purpose. Tevta should not spend funds on the construction of new buildings and it should provide technical education facilities in government buildings, rest houses and rented buildings in order to start process of education, he said.

Shahbaz issued directions for constitution of a special team headed by the P&D chairman to review the powers of Tevta Board. He also directed the officials to review the board, saying women were half of the population of the country and they should also be included in the improvement of every sector, adding that two women be include in the Tevta Board.

The chief minister said Tevta was fully autonomous and government was extending cooperation to it, therefore, it was its responsibility to show results. He directed the Tevta chairman to provide complete details of the students and the technologies in which they had been imparted training during last five years.

MPAs Chaudhry Javed Ahmad, Rana Muhammad Arshad, the P&D chairman, the Schools secretary, the Tevta secretary, representatives of private sector and board members were also present.

Earlier, Tevta Chairman Mohsin Syed, speaking on the occasion, said the authority was set up with the merger of technical education wings of various institutions, including technical education, labour, cooperative, ABAD, agriculture departments and the Punjab Small Industries Corporation and the Industries Department, to produce skilled manpower according to the market demands. He informed that 24 technical educational institutions, 256 vocational training institutions and 114 commerce education colleges were working under Tevta where more than 100,000 students were studying. He talked about different development schemes and said that Tevta would also seek cooperation of the ILO, China, USAID, the UK, JICA, European Union and Korea to modernise technical education in future.

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