SWABI, Jan 17: Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunications Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari has said that Pakistan needs more educational institutions of high calibre to produce professionals capable of taking on the future challenges.
He was speaking at a function marking "10 Years of Excellence" organized by the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology here on Saturday.
Mr Leghari said the educated class, scientists and engineers had greater responsibilities to work as catalysts of change in society.
He said: "The impressive buildings, labs and campus alone do not make centre of excellence. A centre of excellence is raised by human materials: the teachers, researchers and students. It required vision, selfless dedication, wise and result-oriented planning and management".
He said the GIK Institute had become a symbol of excellence and outstanding success in the field of engineering, education and research in Pakistan. It remained the first internationally-acclaimed centre of excellence.
He hoped that the GIK alumni would act as flag-bearers of Pakistan and ambassadors of goodwill wherever they went.
He stressed the need of improving the quality of education, strong linkage between the industrial sector and education sector and quality improvement to compete with international companies, saying there was no lack of expertise in Pakistan.
Mr Leghari said quality of education was key to generating demand and creating jobs in the IT sector, adds APP.
He said in IT industry, Pakistan was competing at the global level, adding that "we must have world class products and services."
He said his ministry was already working to create demand in order to absorb the IT graduates.
He said during the last six months, the IT ministry had already approved over 20 projects worth Rs500 million.
In addition, six mega projects were approved involving a sum of about Rs1.9 billion to bring IT education to 1,100 secondary and higher secondary government schools, he said.
The minister said a modern IT laboratories and qualified IT teachers would be provided in each of the 1,100 schools.
He said the IT companies in Pakistan were also in their growth phase.
"They are adopting international best practices and methods to improve their competitiveness and the IT ministry is funding a major part of the ISO certification of the IT companies," he said.
The minister said his ministry had already signed contracts for the ISO certification of over 100 companies. Over 40 have already completed the certification while those of others was in progress, he said.
He said his ministry was funding 90 per cent of the cost of CMM certification of five companies.
Awais Leghari said another important aspect of improving the overall quality lay in building strong linkages between education and the industry.
"As the students get exposure to real life problems while they are still in their final years of education, they will be able to deliver more quickly on their job assignments," he said.
He added that the industry "can also benefit from the vast amount of knowledge and highly trained faculty of educational institutions to create a culture of research and development."