RAWALPINDI, July 6: Federal Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis Ghulam Sarwar Khan on Wednesday said the government would set up National Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (NTEVTA) to promote technical education in the country. Addressing the annual prize distribution ceremony of Faizul Islam Technical Training Institute, the minister said an amount of Rs2.6 billion had been allocated for the establishment of the authority.

He said the board of governors of the authority would be constituted on the representatives of both public and private sector. He said the main aim for setting up this national level authority was to impart technical training to the country’s youth.

Mr Khan said such authorities would also be set up at provincial level. He said as many as 0.3 million country’s youth and workers would be provided training through this programme.

He said under the programme, besides public-sector organizations, the ministry would also impart training to the workers of private-sector organizations. He said Rs500 would be paid as honorarium during training.

The minister said the government took this decision in order to meet the international markets demand of export of skilled workers. He said through this decision the government would be able to control unemployment.

Mr Khan said the government had also planned to set up 21 technical training institutes in the Punjab and one technical and vocational training institute each in every district.

He said past governments did nothing for the promotion of technical education, adding that all credit went to the present government who had taken concrete steps for the promotion of technical and vocational education in the country.—APP