Enhancing skills: ‘Women empowerment vital for society’s progress’

TEVTA chief says, there is need to train more female students to fulfill demand of fashion industry

LAHORE: Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA) Chairperson Irfan Qaiser Sheikh has said that society can progress by providing employment opportunities to women who are an integral part of the society.

He said this while speaking to different delegations at TEVTA Secretariat, a press release issued on Tuesday stated. “Women in our society have talent, but their talent needs to be polished. Therefore, there is a need to provide them skill and jobs.”

He added that Pakistan’s fashion industry witnessed massive growth over the last decade and there was a huge demand for working women in that line of work. “Although there are around 80% females working in this sector, we need to train more female students to fulfill the demand of the fashion industry,” he elaborated.

The TEVTA chief explained that as per the project of the Industry Demand Driven (IDD) course, the six month fashion designing course commenced in 2015. “The enrolled students are also provided Rs1,000 per month stipend to meet their expenses,” he said.

He said since the inception of the course, TEVTA had trained more than 3,000 female students across the province.

Irfan Sheikh maintained, “When this course was started in 2015, only 750 students were enrolled. However, in the current batch, around 1,200 students are studying. This year the number of students will be double as the enrollment will reach 2,500.”

He said that TEVTA will now focus on providing female students training in those sectors where demand was more.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2018.