ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: The Centre will provide Rs2 billion special funding to the Sindh government to support industrialisation in the province by improving, enhancing and streamlining technical and vocational training of the industrial workforce and the youth.

Official sources told Dawn on Friday that the Sindh government had finalised a plan to meet the requirement of World Trade Organisation (WTO) to develop technical and vocational training of industrial workers, as well as the new workers, aimed at integrating macro-economic stability with sectoral targets.

Under the plan, there will be the revamping of existing public and private sector training institutions so as to generate more employment.

Revamping the existing training system, sources said, is a pre-requisite for employment generation and meeting the challenges of globalization and WTO regime.

The plan is part of the federal government's decision to enhance training capacity to 300,000 per annum over a period of three years. It would increase employment of school leavers.

According to details, Sindh has initially been released Rs500 million to undertake massive skilled development programme in the province. In accordance with Medium-Term Development Framework (MTDF), Sindh has been asked to give priority to generate new employments through imparting technical and vocational training to youth, particularly in public sector department.

The Directorate of Manpower and Training Sindh, Technical Education, Private Training Providers and Skilled Development Council Karachi, will coordinate efforts to provide technical and vocational training to industrial workers, as well as the youth, both boys and girls.All departments/institutes of the provincial government have been directed to maintain separate maintenance of accounts and carry out audit as per standard government rules and regulations.

The Directorate of Manpower and Training Sindh will submit comprehensive reports on quarterly basis to the National Training Bureau (NTB) and will be fully responsible for appropriate utilization of funds.

The training programme will be coordinated and monitored by the DMT, Sindh on a regular basis both in public and private sector institutions.

Under the programme, 60,519 trainees will be trained reach year and in 18,1557 would be trained in the next three years from the lower and middle class families.

Since the training contents approved by the federal government and are job-oriented and demand-driven to local job market, it is envisaged that passed out trainees would be employed in the local market to help ameliorate income of their families and enhance the socio-economic conditions of the population.

Since most of the classes will be in the evening shift, the existing staff will be paid remuneration for their duties. However, the Sindh government has been authorized to engage additional necessary staff from local market on the remuneration fixed by the federal government. Existing staff of the training centres will be engaged on part-time basis.

At present, 33 vocational/technical training centres are functioning in Sindh, having training capacity of 4242. The Sindh government is establishing five new training centres, which would add training capacity of 520 trainees in the system. Training is also imparted in private institutions, coordinated by the Directorate of Technical Education, Skill Development Council Karachi and Directorate of Manpower and Training. About 15,000 trainees are being trained in the private sector.

It has been planned to launch training course of three to six months duration to optimise the utilization of existing infrastructure and enhance the training capacity without disturbing the present training courses.

According to the concerned officials, skilled manpower is the backbone of the industry and the industrial progress is difficult without the availability of skilled manpower.

The country's developing economy, they said, required a large number of trained workers to march towards industrialization and economic development and poverty reduction.