ISLAMABAD, March 12: Minister of State for Education Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli on Monday underlined the need for streamlining the process of certification and accreditation of technical institutions to develop human resources, in line with international market’s requirements.

She was speaking at a two-week workshop on “Accreditation and Certification in Technical Vocational and Education Training (TVET),” organized by the Colombo Plan Staff College for Technical Education, Manila, Philippines, in collaboration with the National Institute of Science and Technical Education (NISTE) here.

She said that we were in an era of globalization, which posed a host of challenges for developing countries like Pakistan and these could be met only when technical institutions produced credible technicians and engineers, whose qualifications were recognized worldwide.

“A pragmatic approach that utilises all the resources of the nation and individual talents from every quarter, needs to be adopted so that we are able to develop an effective mechanism to carry out accreditation of our Technical Vocational and Education Training institutions,” she remarked.

She said that similar workshops should be held in the future as well and different government departments should cooperate with each other in formulating an effective national policy in this regard.

Earlier, Director General Maj-Gen (retd) Syed Shahid Mukhtar Shah said the institution was a potent source of knowledge and expertise and was playing key role in building capacities of teachers, in line with modern requirements.

He hoped the workshop would be useful in sharing ideas and encouraging discussions that would provide the basics of TVET accreditation and certification to meet challenges in developing human resources, he added.

Director General Colombo Plan Staff College for Technical Education Dr Man Gon Park appreciated Pakistan government’s efforts and support for hosting the workshop, which would provide an opportunity to share experiences with participants and make their efforts more productive.

He said that owing to globalization, the developing countries had to do more to improve their human resources to effectively cope with the phenomenon of brain drain.—APP