MULTAN, March 21st: With the advent of globalisation, the growth would crucially depend on skills for producing goods and services of better quality at the competitive prices. The skill development results in mastery, resiliency, and core competencies in various fields.,said Khawaja Jalaluddin Roomi President of Multan Chamber ofCommerce & Industry (MCCI)while echanging views with the Chief Executive Officer of Technology upgradation and Skill Development Company (TUSDEC)Muhammad Alamgir Chaudhry. Roomi said that skill building is a process and not an isolated event or training. Three types of skill development may be distinguished: Creative and Cognitive Skills: Personal and Social Skills: and Vocational and Job Skills:Training of various skills in Pakistan is imparted through polytechnic, vocational training centres, apprenticeship schemes, various training and vocational institutions under various ministries and departments, commercial training institutions and ‘Ustad-Shagird’ system in the informal sector.Alamgir Chaudhry said that TUSDEC is being successfully managed by a public-private partnership with its 2/3 board members from private and 1/3 from public sector. With its CEO from the private sector, the organization is entirely funded by Government of Pakistan with a paid up Capital of Rs.150 Million which is further divided into 15 Million shares of Rs. 10 each.Establishment of Technology Upgradation Centres (TUCs) in order to supply the channels of Technology acquisitions.Seven Centres haveso far been established in different parts of country .Three centres were functioning in light engineering which would help in Reverse Engineering, Computer rated designing etc.Establishment of Design, Support and Maintenance Centres,To run the TUCs by cluster based public/private partnerships, Formation of Common Facility Centres (CFCs)/Skill Development Centres (SDCs).Manage to coincide the SDCs with TUCs.Chalking out the margins of skill development in the most critical areas.Upon this MCCI Chief said that the formal institutions produce a very small proportion of total increments to the skilled work force and not necessarily in accordance with the demand and of requisite quality. Skill Development Councils (SDCs), employers led bodies, set up in each province for training needs assessment and meeting the needs through making training arrangement with public and private sector training providers are expected to help in this direction. At present technical education is being imparted through 546 technical and vocational institutions with the capacity of a little over than 200,000. Other member of Multan Chamber said that Pakistan has neither been able to improve vocational and job skills nor could inculcate the creative and cognitive skills and the personal and social skills resulting in loss of output, exports and employment and slow growth of living standards. Various factors have contributed towards the neglect which includes among others inward looking policies with little emphasis on quality products, focus on primitive technologies and choice of economic activities.The meeting was also attended by Khawaja Muhammad Yousaf, Khawaja Muhammad Yiounas, Suhail Mehmood Haral, Khawaja Muhammad Usman, Muzaffar Khakwani ,Khawaja Mohsin, Khawaja Mehr Ali, Khawaja Qasim,Nabeel Asghar, Tariq Hassa,and Saadia Masud .
