ISLAMABAD: Future jobs for the youth are in the food, information technology, hospitality and mining sectors.

This was stated by National Vocational Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC) Chairperson Gulmina Bilal Ahmed.

“The youth should come to this direction and secure their future. Our organisation is implementing Article 25 in a practical way. We enable the youth to become skilled individuals and make them the most useful people in society,” she said in a statement.

“Every Pakistani citizen who is above the age of 18 is eligible for technical programmes. Provincial institutions are our affiliate partners and about 600,000 institutions providing technical education are registered with us,” she said.

NAVTTC’s recognition of priority learning programme has paved the new ways for informal skilled workers to find jobs in Gulf and other countries.

She claimed that National Vocational Technical Training Commission had introduced a world class curriculum for skilled workers.

Ms Ahmed said NewTech certification had opened doors of jobs abroad for the youth.

All informal skilled workers in Pakistan can get certification free of cost through NAVTTC’s RPL programme.

She said auto mechanics, plumbers, electricians and other conventional workers who are uneducated but want to go abroad can get a certificate by taking the RPL programme exam, which will be acceptable abroad.

“The exam is not taken by NAVTTC but by Essayists. In the year 2024, NAVTTC registered 26,000 people under RPL. This is only a two-hour exam under which informally skilled people can get a certificate. Women have also been registered under this programme, but their participation is low.”

She said a programme for women was started called ‘She Fix It’ under which we trained 760 women.

In the first phase, it was a pilot programme but now we are thinking of increasing the number of women.

Under this programme, women are provided with technical training and enabled to fix home appliances themselves, she said.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2025