Training and education are prime ingredients in the process of creating jobs and generating growth. Both also contribute to improving the capacity of the economy. The human resource development and vocational training situation in Pakistan is not impressive as compared to our neighbours and other developing countries of Asia. According to a report, Malaysia is spending about 8% of its GDP on education while Pakistan is spending less than 2% which is the lowest of all South Asian countries.
The percentage of professional diploma holders and skilled workers is logging badly and the situation continues to worsen by the day. In Pakistan’s case there is a serious mismatch between jobs demanded by emerging needs of the economy and the supply of skilled and trained human resource in the country. While the economy is moving towards sophisticated sectors such as telecommunication, IT, financial services and engineering goods, universities and colleges are churning out thousands and hundreds of graduates in arts, languages and humanities. The divergence has created misallocation of resources, on the other hand, shortage of essential skills required to keep wheels of the economy moving.
Moreover, technical and vocational training has failed to keep pace with emerging skill gaps that have further been widened by the migration of experienced technicians and professionals to the Middle East and elsewhere. For a developing country like Pakistan, universal secondary education, worker upgradation and technical training have become priorities. But we must prepare for the next stage to cope with the development. Governments, firms and individual must plan strategies to fill emerging gaps between the existing education and skills level of the population and the need for new skills and training arising from advanced technology, capital accumulation and expansion of labour market.
MERYUM HAIDER DAHIR
Lahore
