PEC to fully digitise operations by December

New graduates to get title of 'Engineer' the same day of their results

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) Chairman Engineer Wasim Nazir has said the council is introducing an e-licensing system and aims to fully digitise all its operations by December this year.

He was speaking at a consultative meeting organised by the PEC at a private hotel in Karachi to discuss issues and challenges facing stakeholders in the construction sector. Engineers, contractors and representatives of related fields attended the meeting, where taxation, payments, licensing, upgradation, price adjustment, public-sector projects and other industry concerns were discussed in detail.

Engineer Wasim Nazir said the ongoing reforms at the PEC were aimed at providing faster, more transparent and convenient services to engineers, contractors and other professionals. Through e-licensing and digital systems, licensing, registration, verification and other processes would be carried out online.

He said that under the Pathway to Practice Programme, newly graduated engineers were now being awarded the title of 'Engineer' by their universities on the same day their results were announced. This enabled them to register with the PEC immediately and begin their professional careers as Registered Engineers, eliminating unnecessary delays between graduation and entry into the profession.

The PEC chairman said the council had also launched the Graduate Trainee Engineers (GTE) Programme, under which more than 2,300 fresh graduate engineers had so far received six months of practical, house-job-style training.

The programme includes five months of industrial training at leading organisations in Pakistan and one month of soft-skills training at the National Defence University in Islamabad. The PEC also provides each participating engineer with a monthly stipend of Rs50,000.

He said the objective was not merely to prevent brain drain but to move towards 'brain gain', enabling Pakistani engineers to acquire advanced experience and expertise abroad and eventually return to contribute to the country's development.

He said the PEC had signed an agreement with NADRA to provide engineers with a digital identity at the national level. Under various agreements with China, opportunities were also being created for Pakistani engineering students to receive education and training there.