Islamabad: 25 March 2022 – Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Mr. Shafqat Mahmood inaugurated the NAVTTC Centre of Excellence in Modern Technologies at National Vocational and Technical Training Commission, Islamabad.It has been established by NAVTTC with the cooperation of GIZ, European Union, Norway and Germany.
The Minister emphasized the need for more Centres of Excellence which provide state of the art cutting edge technology trainings to the youth, which are in high demand internationally and in industry. NAVTTC has established COE Islamabad with multiple labs in modern technologies through donors, for Mechatronics, IT and CNC lab.
The Minister further said that Government gives top priority to the TVET sector and has provided Rs.10 Billion under NAVTTC’s Prime Minister’s Skills for All – Kamyab Jawan Program, which is the flagship program of the government for providing income generating Hi-TECH skills to youth. The Government continues to give a high priority to skills training especially in Hi Tech like Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, cyber security etc.
The Government has given NAVTTC the target to produce one million skilled youth workforce, and availability of such a big skilled labour will cause a massive improvement in the jobs market and industry. The government is focusing on the reforms in TVET sector to bring the technical and vocational trainings in line with the requirements of the marketplace, in order to prepare the workforce with accreditation from international bodies.
Chairman NAVTTC, Syed Javed Hasan shared that NAVTTC is working hand in hand with the training partners for enhancing quality of the TVET sector. NAVTTC has so-far successfully trained 74,736 youth in 150 High-TECH and 100 Conventional technologies with 71% employment. Another batch of 63,000 youth are being given skill trainings through 989 Training partners and reputed universities. 95% youth have expressed satisfaction over the quality of the trainings by NAVTTC. He mentioned that Skills for All Strategy of government is working as a catalyst for imparting quality training among youth.
Executive Director NAVTTC Sajid Baloch assured that NAVTTC is fully committed to provide quality trainings and thanked the donors the EU, Germany and Norway for their valuable support to Pakistan. The Minister appreciated the efforts of NAVTTC team for accomplishing the task of establishment of CoE in Modern Technologies. NAVTTC COE Islamabad will be a Center for training of Chief Master Trainers and Master Trainers, who would then train a large number of youth in modern employable technologies. This will further pave the way towards allowing the Pakistani TVET system to sustainably improve delivery of training and assessment, career counselling and job placement
The upgradation of this Centre is supported by the TVET Sector Support Programme (ssp) which is funded by the European Union, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in close collaboration with NAVTTC, Technical Education and Vocational Training Authorities (TEVTAs) and a number of public and private sector organizations at national and provincial levels. The TVET SSP is supporting the establishment of five Centres of Excellence across the country.
Speaking at the ceremony, Cluster Head for Training and Sustainable Growth for Decent Jobs GIZ Pakistan, Mr. Olaf Handloegten, appreciated this initiative and hoped that the NAVTTC management will take advantage of the upgraded training facilities for both TVET teachers and trainees and devise mechanisms to ensure that this CoE lives up to its full potential.
“Now it’s time for NAVTTC and the private sector to ensure sustainability of these efforts and achievements,” he maintained.
Earlier, in the opening remarks, Chairman NAVTTC Syed Javed Hassan said, “We are overjoyed that the CoE in Islamabad is now complete and being turned over to the NAVTTC to set an example for all of Pakistanis in providing outstanding training to instructors and trainees.”
The NAVTTC CoE with modern technologies seeks to foster excellence in training delivery for youth and TVET practitioners. The initiative will assist in the building up of a competent workforce with better job opportunities.
In total, five CoEs are to be established through up-gradation from which one has been completed last year in Peshawar and others are in Lahore, Kotri and Hub.
These CoEs will provide a cascading model of teachers training, upscaling of skills for trainees, modern lab facilities, and career counselling and job placement services under the one roof.
The NAVTTC CoE in Islamabad is the second Centre of Excellence to achieve accomplishment. The institute was established in 1976 with the aim to provide quality technical training to Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) teachers, including Mandatory Teachers Training. Upgraded to Centre of Excellence and supported by state-of-art facilities, the CoE faculty is now to drive forward continuous professional development of teachers while offering high quality courses for students.
The story originally appeared in Pakistan in the World
