Increased enrolment : ‘Technical education Punjab tops in S Asia with graduates’
While addressing the representatives of business community at TEVTA secretariat on Wednesday, Sheikh elaborated that the authority had increased its annual enrolment from 50,000 graduates to 200,000 in the last three years; one of the largest among South Asian countries.
He said that when he joined TEVTA, he ordered the spending of money on human resources to achieve this milestone. “That huge budget was earlier being spent on the construction of new buildings, but now these already constructed structures were being used to train students,” he added.
Sheikh said that he had shifted TEVTA’s courses from long to short by following the model of technical education in developed countries including Japan, Germany and others. He said that now the authority was offering 52 short courses in various fields as per the needs and demands of the industry.
Besides the increase in number of graduates and short courses, the ratio of student to employment has also improved in the past three years, he said. Irfan explained that when there were market-oriented courses, the industry inevitably hired students with related qualifications.
He said that recently introduced Chinese language course had become the flagship of TEVTA and was being offered free of cost in more than 25 districts across the largest and most populated province of the country. “In this three-month course, Chinese master trainers taught enrolled students of all ages as there was no such specific age limit,” he informed the members of business community.
The chairman also observed that among successful courses, 30,000 students took IT as it was being offered in collaboration with Microsoft. He said that in the next year, this number will be increased to 60,000.
Talking about quality, he elaborated that TEVTA’s only focus was not quantity. He added that the authority collaborated with several international organisations and foreign companies.
“These companies provided financial assistance and helped in increasing the teacher’s training, course designing, setting of center of excellence and new buildings of colleges. The organisations included Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TIKA), GIZ of Germany, USAID, Microsoft, globally acclaimed City and Guilds and many such others.”
Published in The Express Tribune, November 30th, 2017.
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