Skilled workforce: Tevta colleges to offer 30% more seats this year

Tevta Board of Management meeting held in Faisalabad.

FAISALABAD:

The Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (Tevta) announced on Saturday that the authority’s educational institutes will offer 30 per cent more seats for admission.

The announcement was made after a meeting of Tevta’s district board that was chaired by Suhail bin Rashid, the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) president and the Tevta Faisalabad Board of Management (BoM) chairman. He said 5,708 students were enrolled in various TEVTA institutions in Faisalabad district. “This year, 8,000 students will get admissions,” Rashid said. He said some of the institutions were not working at full capacity. “We have decided to provide funds to these educational institutions to address their problems,” he said.

Rashid said that Government College of Technology (GCT) Samanabad had been declared a centre of excellence. He said two more colleges would be given a similar status this year.

“Food technology courses offered by GCT have attracted a large number of students. So we will offer more admissions in the course this year,” he said. Rashid said that most of the students who had completed the course had got jobs.

“The BoM decided that the Government Institute of Technology, Millat Town, will be inaugurated in September,” he said.

He said that it had been decided that the board meetings would now be held every month at Tevta institutes.

“The board also decided to invite the Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development Company chairman to the FCCI for the establishment of a gems and jewellery training centre at Faisalabad,” Rashid said. The FCCI president said that local industrial units would offer three-month internships to Tevta position holders. He said that the students would be paid a stipend of Rs6,000 per month.

The officials also discussed a proposal to set up a new Tevta institute at Chak Jhumra to provide skilled workforce to the factories located in the M-3 Industrial Estate.

“For this purpose, the board will request the government to provide land for the institute at the M-3 Industrial Estate,” he said.

The meeting also discussed the increasing demand of skilled workers abroad, especially in China and South Korea. “The board has decided to start Chinese and Korean language courses for students,” Rashid said.

Earlier, Muhammad Kashif Akhtar, the Tevta district manager, briefed the meeting participants about the authority’s future projects.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2014.