By Asad Cheema
ISLAMABAD: “Providing skill-based knowledge to students can help accelerate the national economic growth,” this was the crux of a meeting held between Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed and University of Sargodha (UoS) Vice Chancellor Dr Qaisar Abbas.
The UoS VC was called on the HEC chairman to discuss the issues and challenges related to higher education on Thursday.
Dr Ahmed said, “Education, skills, and technical training are at the heart of economic growth that is sustainable, inclusive, and adds value.
Both the latent and active workforces need to be built up for future investment and self-employment, and management training programmes and business incubators can help a great deal in this regard.”
He further said effective industry participation was considered to be one of the most important parts of the skill development system, but it was, unfortunately, missing in Pakistan. “This makes it harder for graduates to get the skills that employers want and makes businesses less competitive.”
Dr Qaisar Abbas said there was a dire need to focus on training as an investment to produce technically equipped students, who could better compete in the market, adding that an unequivocal and clearly articulated national agenda for skill development should be introduced as a policy at higher education institutions.
He further said liaison between industry and academia was essential for transforming the higher education sector into industry and enabling it to compete on a global scale.
“By strengthening ties between academia and industry, Pakistan can achieve economic prosperity.”
Moreover, he said, “We must focus on human resource development and equip our youth with the skills necessary to fully explore domestic and international markets.”
The HEC chairman praised the UoS VC for his work to educate people from underprivileged groups and told him to focus on the quality of education if he wanted to make real changes in society.
Dr Qaisar also invited the Chairman HEC on an upcoming event at the UoS for celebrating 20 years of academic excellence, research productivity, knowledge sharing and global outlook.
