PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (Tevta) has decided to convert all its traditional skills training programmes into competency-based training and assessment (CBT&A), in order to improve the quality of training.

Briefing mediapersons here on Tuesday, KP Tevta managing director Sajjad Ali Shah said that the authority’s board of directors had approved the decision of converting all traditional courses into CBT&A, which was already being implemented in some institutes of KP with the support of National Vocational and Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC) and the TVET Sector Support Programme. The programme is funded by the European Union and governments of Germany and Norway and it has been supporting Tevta since 2011.

Mr Shah said that they had joined hands with their international donors and partners for achieving the goal of producing skilled youth for better employability prospects.

The CBT&A is a modern way of delivering technical and vocational training, which exists in a number of developed countries, including the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and South Asian countries.

Official says promotion of technical education govt’s priority

He said that the programmes had been piloted in a number of institutes in KP and across Pakistan. He said that the government had decided to implement CBT&A courses and to convert all the existing programmes from upcoming academic session.

He said that an advisory had been issued to the institutes for starting preparations for conversion of all trades being offered at respective institutes, subject to availability of notified CBT&A curricula.

The KP Tevta managing director said that promotion of technical education would help the province to take benefit of its skilled human resource besides creating employment opportunities for the technical workforce.

He said that the Tevta along with TVET Sector Support Programme had been making efforts for capacity development of the existing teaching staff of training institutes. The introduction of competency-based training is an important element of the National Skills Strategy.

Through the competency-based assessment, the trainees are assessed after completing the programme and awarded high quality national vocational certificates.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2019