Building Capabilities for Sustainable Growth

Engineering Post Report

Building capabilities is the key to sustaining  economic growth and development  in the country. It requires sufficient investment in the sectors of Information and Telecommunication Technologies (ICT) , youth and skill development, science and technology,  higher education and institutional reforms and governance.

According to the Planning Commission sources, Pakistan needs  to improve  its production growth, increase the skill levels of its workforce  and consequently  move towards better living  standard for its people. These multifarious challenges could only be addressed by adoption of technology on widespread level in the country.

Sectoral unemployment  is the main capability issue pertaining to youth  that needs to be addressed. The reforms in  technical, vocational education and training sector had led to the adoption of National TVET Policy through National Vocational Qualification Framework and upgrading  the  Competency based Training and Assessment.  However, the skill gap for some trades  and geographic regions still existed, which are being addressed  through upgradation of existing  TVETs and establishment of new TVETs in less developed districts  in the provinces. Second main issue of the sector was  gender equity. To exploit  the full potential of youth, gender-wise equity in terms of female contribution  was also being mainstreamed in the TVETs skill development programmes.

Science and Technology Sector, the sources pointed out continuingly,  has vast potential  to improve the standard of living of general populace as investment in this sector offered numerous cross-sector linkages, ventures in other sectors of socio-economic importance. Building knowledge economy  architecture required investment  in human resource development in Science and Technology sector in order to make Pakistani products competitive in the international markets.

The incumbent federal government was committed to supporting  development of knowledge-economy based on three main  verticals: access, quality and relevance to economic development. Although, access to higher education  has appreciably increased, yet Pakistan lags behind  comparable countries in this respect. The other two objectives, namely equality and relevance also needed significant improvement.

The governance referred to the process of and structures that are designed to ensure rule of law, accountability, transparency,  responsiveness, stability, equity and inclusiveness, empowerment  and broad-based participation.

 The present government was cognizant  of the importance of improving governance as a key enabler of effective service delivery, successful outcomes of various public policies and programmes that were critical for sustainable economic growth and development of the country.