ISLAMABAD, June 14: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that Pakistan should produce 1 million skilled work force annually.

He said this while presiding over a meeting of the National Vocational and Technical Education Commission (Navtec) here on Wednesday.

The prime minister asked Navtec to submit a comprehensive programme for technical education and vocational training system to produce 1 million skilled work forces annually by 2010.

The plan would be submitted in six to eight weeks time.

Mr Aziz said presently there was a widening gap between industry and training institutes as a result of the inability of training institutes to keep up with new technologies.

He said there was no balance between supply and demand of skilled workers and the government would initiate short, medium and long term training programmes to produce high quality skilled manpower in priority areas.

The prime minister said Navtec would be an apex body for formulating policy and providing support and regulatory framework.

He asked Navtec to take immediate steps to identify the local and global demands and initiate need-based training programmes to bridge the skill gap for local consumption as well as for oversees employment.

Navtec should provide cluster-focused training and particularly focus on the fields of nursing and paramedics, construction industry, hospitality sector, transport sector and telephone operators as there was a great demand for high quality workers in these fields, he said.

The prime minister also asked Navtec to “maintain gender balance, ensure quality of training programmes, hire experts both from local and foreign markets as trainers, use the facilities of existing public and private sector institutions and strengthen capacity of existing public sector institutions.”

Mr Aziz said training programmes would be properly advertised in the national media to make selections on merit and stipend would be awarded to every trainee.

He agreed to a suggestion made by Navtec that special cells should be created in the offices of chief ministers to coordinate skills development training.

Chairman Navtec Salim Altaf in his presentation said that in phase-I Navtec would develop databases of existing facilities and work focus. Their five years implementation programme included development of skill standards, curriculum development and course design, public private partnership projects, public sector expansion, developing performance assessment parameters, international linkages and effective monitoring and evaluation.

The meeting was attended among others by Minister for Labour and Manpower Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Minister for Industries and Production Jehangir Khan Tareen, Minister for Tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Dr Salman Shah, Minister of State for Education Anisa Zaib Tahirkheli and senior officials.