President for enhanced link between universities, industry for employment opportunities

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Thursday urged the country’s higher educational institutions and universities to focus on producing youth equipped with diverse skills and technologies to cope with the requirements of modern industry and enhance job opportunities.

Speaking at the concluding session of a day-long seminar titled “Creating Employment Opportunities through Market Driven Skills and Education” here at the Aiwan-e-Sadr he said that the educated youth being currently produced by country’s universities did not match the demand of industry.

The President said that being Chancellor of 25 universities he was working on bringing improvement and up-gradation in the curricula as per the requirements of the evolving digital era.

Highlighting the importance of IT and Artificial Intelligence in the modern world, he said 7 out of the top 10 world companies including Apple, Alibaba and Amazon were related to IT and data market and were making money.

The President also mentioned how China had achieved the unprecedented technical advancement including the development of silicon-valley over the past years. “If China can do it, why not Pakistan,” he remarked.

He said as things in the world had moved beyond vocational training and skilled education, if the people of Pakistan did not focus on modern education including IT and Artificial Intelligence, they would just be working as labourers.

The President highlighted the importance of high levels of intellectual training of youth by educational institutes and said “whatever is produced by our universities should be marketable." He urged the need for improving the link between industry and universities, which was currently very weak.

Industries should also extend their support to help universities create educated youth as per their requirement.

In this respect, the President said, the institutions like National Vocational and Technical Education Commission (NAVTECH) and Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA) should be used.

He said that with Pakistan also having successfully fought the war against terrorism and throwing out extremism, and other countries still struggling, there was a need to sell Pakistan as a “brand” in the world.

The President said that since a new Pakistan was emerging due to the people-oriented policies being pursued by the present government, the country’s dreams would start realizing soon.

Special Assistant to PM on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari and Director General National Logistics Cell (NLC) Maj Gen Asim Iqbal also spoke on the occasion and highlighted the importance skilled human resource in the current modern era.