SPECIAL Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, Jawad Sohrab Malik, on Wednesday, signed a letter of intent (LoI) with the Saudi-based global conglomerate, Al Bawani Holdings, to unlock jobs for Pakistani expats. Al Bawani Holdings, a diversified Saudi conglomerate, is among the top five general contracting entities in the Saudi construction sector. The company pledged to establish a state of the art human resource training centre in Pakistan, “to further train and equip the Pakistani workforce with skills required as per international standards.”
This is, indeed, a positive development with potential to boost manpower export to the Kingdom which is already a favourite destination for the Pakistan work force. Saudi Arabia is engaged in brisk construction activities under the Vision-2030 of the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud that seeks to diversify the Saudi economy, establishment of an ultra-modern city and creation/improvement of the Kingdom’s infrastructure at the cost of billions of dollars. There is great scope for export of construction-related manpower to KSA but it depends on development of skills needed by the Kingdom in the development of modern infrastructure. In this backdrop, it is appreciable that arrangements have been made with Al Bawani Holdings for training of Pakistani manpower in the relevant fields. Manpower export can be increased significantly if similar arrangements are also made with other major companies of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. Apart from this, free of cost skills development programmes should also be initiated in different regions of Pakistan in collaboration with professional colleges and universities. Technology undergoes immense changes in a short span of time but it is regretted that our educational institutions including universities are teaching the same old syllabus to students denying them the opportunity to keep pace with latest advances in knowledge and technology. A case in point is AI (artificial intelligence) which is dominating the world of information technology but our colleges and universities are still focusing on programming language ‘C’.
