Technical and vocational education holds an important place in the education mix comprising any academic pursuit with an aim to emancipate the beholder from financial deprivation. Industrialisation demands skilled labour at every stage of production. An engineer needs his team of supervisors, technicians, operators, computer experts and others to carry out a production process.
A doctor needs nurses, compounders, technicians and a slew of other professionals to assist him on various occupational fronts. This army of trained and skilled people comes from technical and vocational institutes, dedicated to impart focused education to people with a certain mindset. Usually, a vast population of a given county is disposed to acquire education that gives them speedy entrance into the market with minimal financial risk. Vocational and technical educational institutions train people in a particular technical in accordance with the industry’s requirement.
Economically this labour force helps manage production processes. Though technical and vocational institutions are operative in Punjab for the last sixty years, its value in contributing generously to the bottom line has been realised only recently. Keeping in view the importance of technical education, the government of Punjab decided to establish an autonomous body to take over the control of all TEVT institutions, namely Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA) in July 1999. TEVTA is currently running 481 technical and vocational institutes in Punjab. In order to get a feel of this ambitious body, Profit held an exclusive interview with TEVTA Chairman Saeed Ahmad Alvi.
Human resource development: a neglected area
Name any department or area of concern; Pakistan stands null and void. There is not a single industry or institution in the country that can claim to have broken the ice of corruption to celebrate professionalism, productivity and efficiency. It is such a mess that one wonders, even after the creation of Bangladesh, that what has kept this nation united so far. Meeting Technical Education and Vocational Authority Chairman Saeed Ahmad Alvi, in his Gulberg office for an exclusive interview had a mixed feeling of joy and sorrow to the sense of nationalism present in all of us, desiring to see Pakistan to rise above its petty issues and become a nation at least. He was candid in saying that Pakistan has been lagging far behind in having quality labour. He elaborated on this point by saying that, “The reason our country has failed to perform at par in industrial and institutional endeavours with other developing countries, is our lack of human resource development. Supplying quality labour to the market has never been the choice of Pakistan’s Government. When it was not a priority, TEVTA was never pushed to work in that direction. A glimpse at the workforce hired previously by TEVTA gives a fairly good idea of the conviction the government has held regarding competent human resource that could spin the country off its poverty syndrome. TEVTA used to have teachers with matriculation and even below that qualification level, while it failed to have even a single engineer worth the salt. In such a situation how quality could be assured. We have such a huge surplus of unproductive staff, typical of a government organisation, that most of our funds are consumed by them. We have a plan to retire majority of our existing staff (DAE/matriculation/certificate holders) by the year 2026 (15 years later). Temporarily though, in order to save funds, we have decided to post or transfer existing surplus staff to our new schemes now operational in different parts of Punjab.
Industry linkages
According to the Global Talent Index 2011 by the Economic Intelligent Unit on the quality of skilled labour, Pakistan has scored 29.9 per cent as compared to 40 per cent of China and 64 per cent of India. While discussing this point, TEVTA Chairman rolled out the aims of the Punjab government in revamping TEVTA from every angle, “We are aiming at a modern syllabus, modern tools, qualified teachers, running institutions and standardised certification. TEVTA is working on a demand driven phenomenon. We are in constant touch with the industry, getting their input on the kind of workforce it requires. We have even proposed to purchase machines used by textile, pharmaceuticals and surgical industries to ensure a well trained and competent labour force for future consumption. We have been given 4 acre of land in Sundar Estate to establish a technical and vocational institute. This is in proximity with the industrial sector and would not only ensure easy, fast and prompt job acquisition to our students on the completion of their courses, but the entire training session would be driven by market needs. I pretty much agree with the industrial sector over the acute shortage of skilled manpower. In order to pursue industry linkages programme, we have engaged Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industries. The idea is again to do what they want. Industries have been complaining that TEVTA is not providing the right workforce. This step of ours would ensure that they get what they want. So we have asked them to not only help us in designing the curriculum but to provide us teachers as well.” Further elaborating on industry linkages, Alvi highlighted industries working closely with TEVTA. Tetra Pak, Nishat Apparel Mills, Pakistan Foundry Association are some of the few stakeholders that are working closely with TEVTA on a two way scheme. In the case of Nishat, TEVTA is providing training for women in industrial stitching while Nishat is reciprocating by helping TEVTA to get the required machine for its institutions and its trainers with foreign expertise lending training sessions to TEVTA students. Similarly, Pakistan Foundry is helping TEVTA to revise and upgrade its curricula.
Rising labour force sans quality
Delving upon the rise of labour force in the country during the outgoing fiscal year 2010-11, which has increased by 1.2 million as compared to the previous year and the total available workforce has touched 54.92 million, Alvi wore a dismal face. He was even more prosaic, when relating the number of applicants that seek admission in TEVTA. “Only 13 per cent of the population (300,000) in the age group of 14-19 is presently enrolled in the vocational and technical institutes, which is very low compared to other developing countries especially in OECD, where the ratio of enrollment in this age group is somewhere between 35-60 per cent. In Asia Pacific, it is 6-20 per cent. TEVTA, on average, trains around 110,000 to 120,000 students annually, while market demand is over one million.”
Main hindrance is paucity of funds
Developmental funds have always found a retreat to the coffers to be divested in other areas. Last year, the disastrous floods have sucked a huge sum of developmental funds; the axe fell on TEVTA as well. Commenting on this issue, Alvi said that for many years TEVTA has been allocated approximately Rs1500 million to run its affairs. “From the promised sum of Rs1500 million it has been getting Rs500 million only. With these paltry funds, it has been almost impossible to manage such a huge system. Our structure is such that we have had a huge workforce and most of the resources go into salaries. Approximately Rs3.4 million are used for salaries. The issue is not that we are over staffed, the issue is that most of our staff is non productive. In the ongoing fiscal year, we are expecting to receive Rs2 billion for developmental work, out of Rs6 billion allocated for TEVTA. This obviously means more machines, more labs and a better trained work force. Unless funds are adequately spent on programmes, such as TEVTA, no development on the human resource front can materialise. Basically it is a matter of prioritising and political will.
If not Pakistan then abroad
Pakistan is passing through its worst economic woes owing to energy crises and of course law and order situation. Industries are working on margins; many have shut down their operation in Pakistan. Investment in the country is hardly an option for foreigners. He said, “Our job is to train people so that they find a respectable place in the society without being dependent on others, of course we care about their job placement and have devised certain measure to ensure that all of our students get employed but we cannot stop training people on the pretext of low investment or no investment in Pakistan. In any case our people can go abroad and we know a large number of them are already there. Look at the remittances, soaring to a new high every other day. Pakistan is exporting over 0.4 million skilled and unskilled labour to different countries of the world every year.”
Interest free micro loans
Akuwat has been providing soft loans to needy people for the past few years without applying very stringent financial rules. TEVTA has joined hands with Akhuwat to provide soft loans to its students planning to pursue small business. Alvi briefed on it saying, “With job market shrinking self- employment is becoming a relevant strategy to get engaged in economic activities. We at TEVTA are encouraging our students to pursue small businesses and for that we are all out to assist them. Akuwat is providing loan at the tune of Rs.25,000 while Centre for Women Co-operative Development is lending up to Rs100,000. Already 17 loans have been granted. With this initial money the applicant could lay the ground of his/her business venture. To a query regarding such a paltry sum for business development. Alvi said “usually with this sum a person can set up a small shop with few machines. We must not forget that this loan carries no interest so it is not a bad deal at all.”
Competent instructors
Instructors are the lifeline of any educational institute. Unfortunately in past such a strategic and important dimension was ignored. Instructors were hardly above ten years of educational studies. We have developed a balanced mix of teaching faculty comprising Engineers, BTEC, and MBAs etc. We have inducted almost 148 engineers and 280 non engineer instructors. We have entered into agreements with many foreign institutions and almost 686 instructors have been trained so far from abroad.
It is all about Political will
While wrapping the interview Alvi took a shot at the remedial steps needed to prevent future decay in the economic system saying that, “the crux of the matter is that unless we have a strong and viable human resource this country cannot progress. In the line of Energy crises there is a crisis of skilled labour as well. I can assure you that once government of Pakistan gets serious on this issue our GDP would quadruple in matter of few years. Productivity is as much the function of human capital as it is of financial capital.
