INDUSTRY`S effective involvement is one of the major missing linl(s in the country`s skill development system, depriving the workforce of attaining employable skills and making enterprises less competitive.

Many countries with a good technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system have put the private sector in the driving seat for creation of a demand-driven workforce. Private enterprises, being the end-users of the workforce trained in the TVET institutes, play an active role in identifying and defining the workforce, which they need for their growth and expansion.

Employers, through different platforms (chambers, trade associations), contribute to the TVET policy and training delivery, provide input for curriculum development and also participate in the certification and assessment of the trainees, produced for the market. This means the employer is involved at all the stages of workforce development that contributes not only to the enterprise productivity but also increases the prospects of employability of the skilled manpower.

However, TVET sector in Pakistan runs comparatively in isolation with limited or, in some cases, no involvement of the industry, which creates a big mismatch between the skills imparted and the ones needed in the market. The country has the most limited vocational education and training capacity in South Asia after Afghanistan.

According to Pakistan Education Statistics 2010-11, there are only 3,224 training institutes, which hardly produce 280,000 skilled people annually.

Even with this lowest production capaci-ty of skilled workforce, the TVET sector policy formulation and delivery is heavily dominated by the public sector. This lack of cooperation between public and private sector results into creation of a workforce, which does not meet the market demand.

At national level, the federal government has a constitutional mandate to formulate policies for the overall TVET sector like other areas of national economic development.

Whenever some policies are formulated, usually the private sector is consulted through different committees and forums, but the industry doesn`t have any institutional role in shaping the policies to governthe sectors.

As per 18th Amendment, the provincial governments are responsible for producing a workforce that meets the market demand.

C o mp e ten cybased-curricula, trainers with good pedagogical and technical skills and latest equip-m.ent oupleÊwith on-the-job training are the essential elements, required for producing quality workforce.

If any of these basic elements is missing, the training outcome would not meet the demand of the market. Direct involvement of the employer plays a crucial role in making this combination of basic elements work.

When it comes to development of curricula, the industry is the most relevant entity that can identify and define the major skills that is to be imparted to the workforce. Same goes for coaching trainers. The trainers supported by latest labs and equipment needs to have knowledge of the toolsand machines being used in the market.

For this, the industry also plays an important role in training so that teachers can produce the workforce that is needed in the market. Finally, there is on-the-job training or practical part of the skill training. Workplace learning, currently in vogue in countries with good TVET system, makes the training system based on competence rather than curricula or just theory.

The current training delivery system in the provinces offers little or in some cases no space to the industry. The provincial government had made some half-hearted attempts to take industry on board by givingthem managerial role in management of the training institutes; but it could not create any good example; rather it has increased the distrust between the public and private sector.

Out of the total 3,224 TVET institutes, 967 work under public sec-tor while the remaining 2,257 ar f pÑvate sector. Barring a few, none of these training institutes have a direct link with the industry or enterprises, where their trainees are supposed to work after completing their training. As a result the institutes work in isolation, producing workforce that is unable to match the skills and competence required at the workplace.

When graduates from the TVET institutes join the job market, the employers find them less productive because they are not trained on a competency based curricula, and have not experienced on-the-job training. Enterprises re-train these graduates just to prepare them for work.At the same time the graduates, on completing their training from the TVET institutes, do not earn as well as someone trained through informal (ustad-shagrid) system mainly because they cannot perform the tasks, they are expected to do.

This is one of the reasons that employers/industry prefer recruiting workers trained through the informal training system than those coming from the formal TVET stream of skill development. This ultimately leads to poor reputation of the TVET stream of education as well.

One of the biggest challenges we face which can be also an opportunity is the fact that 63 million people in the age group of 5-15 will enter the labour market in future. The estimates suggest that the number of workforce will increase to 236 million by 2050 comparing to 110 million in 2010. Hardly one per cent of the labour force, as per the 2008-09 estimates, receives formal skill training. The public sector employment has reached saturated level, so equipping the youth with employable skills is the ultimate solution to this challenge.

The positive side of the story is that all the mainstream political parties do realise the growing number of youth needs to be given employable skills so that it should not be relying on public sector jobs only.

The incumbent federal and provincial governments, in their recent budgets, have announced a number of short-term skill development initiatives for illiterate and semi-illiterate youth.

These initiatives, however, can hardly make any difference unless the entire system of skill development is reformed and revamped. There is a need for close cooperation between the public and private sector for producing a competent and welltrained workforce, which not only caters to the local demand, but also to the international market.