Lopsided priorities

Former prime minister Shaukat Aziz used to say that one of the problems with Pakistan’s education system was that it produced more graduates than those with diplomas in technical skills. While the graduates would be looking for white-collar jobs, putting pressure on the government to create employment, the demand for properly trained technical tradespersons continued to widen.

The situation has not changed. Even today, it is more difficult to get a good electrician, plumber or driver than to find a graduate in one subject or another. Our rich and privileged hire nannies and ayahs from abroad while thousands at home could be well suited to do the same job if they were properly trained. Many employers lament the fact that they look for foreign workers because Pakistan’s tradespersons, most of whom are trained on the job, lack in terms of work quality and their ability to adapt to new ideas and processes in their field.

One cannot blame the youth of Pakistan. They have done the best they could but most of them can barely read or write. Moreover, they do not possess industry-recognised qualifications which they could use to move ahead in their professions. It is these qualifications that have helped youth from neighbouring countries land jobs in the Gulf or the West. Pakistanis have usually gone as un-skilled labour. If anyone is to blame, it is the government for not putting into place a system that enables these thousands of young men and women to better their circumstances.

But all is not lost — at least not yet. We do have success stories where the government has indeed played a positive role. One such shining example is the Punjab Vocational Training Council (PVTC) which has, over the passage of 22 years, imparted skills training to over 800,000 deserving young men and women. Established in 1998 from the Punjab Bait-ul-Maal funding to provide training to people from lower income households, it has helped set up and partially fund a network of vocational training institutes all over Punjab.

Today there are almost 300 such institutes all over Punjab in different cities, towns and villages where men, women and transgenders (mostly school dropouts) acquire skills which can help them earn an honest living. In 2021, a special fund was also created to train the youth from minority communities who were ineligible for training through Zakat funding.

To encourage the youth to join and to ensure they were given the right attention, every class is restricted to 30 students, each of whom received Rs500 per month as an allowance. These institutes are given a funding from the government of Rs6,000 per month for each student. This is spent on providing them education, practical training and tools required for imparting the skill they have chosen. The trades range from learning computer skills to beautician courses, air-conditioning, electrical and auto-technician skills to tailoring, first-aid and dress designing. Of the funding given to the institutes, Rs4,000 comes from Zakat and Ushr while the balance is given by the PVTC.

But this network of hope is now under a cloud. Funding from Zakat and Ushr is being cut. Instead of tightening its own belt, the PVTC has decided that institutes would have to cut down on the number of courses they offer (as many instructors are being let go) as well as the number of trainees in every class. In one Lahore locality, for instance, training has been reduced from 5 trades to 3 and enrolled students from 150 to 45.

What is upsetting is not only the reduction in funds for this project but the way the PVTC has decided to cut costs. Instead of trimming administrative expenses, it has decided to make the institutes suffer. The irony is that there will hardly be any savings from these short-sighted measures since the administrative costs and staff salaries of regular employees of the PVTC will remain the same. The PVTC has become a top-heavy organisation with top leadership drawing six-figure salaries. With a retired bureaucrat at its helm, it has no downsizing plan for management but will reduce the number of beneficiaries. This is a travesty of justice. It is time for the government to take notice of this otherwise we will see a success story — which has brought hope and help to thousands of Pakistanis over the years — turn into a failure.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2022.

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