Provincial Minister for Labour and Human Resource Raja Ashfaq Sarwar has said that under “Punjab Skills Development Strategy 2018” to achieve the target of a work force of 2 million youth, Punjab government is striving hard to impart demand driven skill training, under its short term of long term programmes keeping in view the foreign and local requirement of the industry.
He said this while presiding over a meeting of Skill Development Committee, today at P&D Auditorium. Chairman Planning & Development Jehanzeb Khan, Secretary Labour Sohail Shehzad, Secretary Livestock Nasim Sadiq, MD PVTC, COO PSDF, CEO TEVTA and representatives of different departments attended the meeting. The meeting stressed upon the importance of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) for the increasing population of youth and urged upon permanent and meaningful linkages of public and private sector for the production of the Skilled Workforce in line with the market needs. Minister Labour Raja Ashfaq Sarwar said that there is greater need and scope to invest in skills programmes supported by the public sector and backed by industrial demand. He stressed upon quality training in the TVET system adding that private sector can be seen as an engine for improving quality of the skills training. Minister said that the target of skill training of two million youth till 2018 will be successfully achieved with short term and long term skill training programmes. Minister said that capacity building, quality assurance and good governance system has been introduced in all the technical training institutes, ensuring job placement for all the skill graduates along with enhancing the opportunities of labour export to GCC and other countries. Raja Ashfaq Sarwar said that Punjab Vocational Training Council, PSDF and TEVTA have taken extensive steps to ramp up their capacity and are on track to meet their goals for next six months training programme.