KARACHI, Nov 26: State Bank governor Dr Ishrat Husain has suggested a three-stage model for the skills development and stressed for the training in and outside the country to produce skilled professionals.
He expressed satisfaction over his programme to produce professionals at the SBP. He said that out of 800 professionals, 400 were sent abroad for training and they were now getting very high premium from the banks.
The governor was addressing the prize distribution ceremony of the Institute of Bankers Pakistan here on Saturday and chose to discuss “The perils of higher skill shortages for Pakistan’s economy.”
He said he did not put any restriction on movement of these professionals and they were already joining different financial institutions.
He said that this was the outcome of the value-addition to the professionals. He stressed that Pakistani universities and professional schools to hire foreign trainers to improve the capability of their students. He said banks and financial institutions should not hesitate to invest in the development of professionals as it would ultimately pay back the institution in much better way.
He said that banks complain that professionals were switching fast from one institution to another to get higher salaries. The governor said that it would continue to happen till the production of large number of skilled professionals in the country. He said this was a good sign that banks were attracting skilled professionals at higher salaries, which means that they are now able to pay for the professionals. He said this was transitional period and would be over once the extreme shortage of skilled professional was over.
“The basic thesis of this paper is that in absence of an integrated model of skill formation, upgradation and maintenance, the ad hoc and piecemeal approaches will remain unproductive and inadequate. It is true that the start-up costs and time involved in getting this integrated model up and going are high but we have already wasted so much time and energy that we are lagging behind other countries,” said the governor.
He presented a training model which constituted three stages. At first stage to get quality students and educated them in professional institutions in and outside the country. At the second stage, value addition programme should be carried out by training the professionals at executive development programmes on job training and foreign training and visits. At the last stage management development programmes are required including foreign attachments and training.
“This proposed model has been tested and applied in case of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). We should, therefore, adopt a bootstraps approach and lay solid foundations for reliable flows of high quality skilled manpower responsive to the changing needs of the economy,” said the governor.
“There is no short cut and it will take time, efforts, coordination among various players and agencies and continuous monitoring and follow-up,” he said.
The industry associations or individual large firms can help upgrade the quality of our universities and institutes by setting up endowed chairs and attracting world class scholars, establishing competitive research grants for exploring practical issues of interest to them, funding scholarships for the best and brightest, who cannot otherwise afford to study at the top private universities and provide travel grants to teachers to attend international conferences, symposia, etc.
“These initiatives will not cost very much in terms of actual outlays but produce highly desirable results in enhancing the quality of our educational institutions and promoting scientific and technological disciplines needed by the economy,” he said.
