Zubair Qureshi
Technology and innovation being fundamental to economic success in the modern competitive world, it is imperative that we equip our youth with technical skills along with conventional education to prepare them for the job market.
Executive Director National Vocational & Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC) Dr Nasir Khan said this while chairing a meeting of the heads of education departments from Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Gilgit Baltistan and officials of Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) at NAVTTC head office on Monday.
Matric-Tech is a flagship project of NAVTTC that is being launched as third stream of education alongside matriculation in general science and arts, said Nasir Khan adding it aimed to integrate technical and vocational education & training with formal education.
Initially, Matric-tech will be piloted in 15 schools of Islamabad, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan.
The scheme will provide opportunities to the youth to choose their career path by giving them options to select between higher education and skill learning according to their aptitude.
The details of the project have been discussed with the Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) which declared level 4 qualifications equivalent to Matric that would be implemented through Boards of Technical Education across the country. The government has approved PC-1 of the project and it will formally be launched in schools in April this year.
Working paper and scheme of studies for implementation of this project were discussed in detail during the meeting.
The participants termed the NAVTTC initiative a big step towards empowerment of youth and assured of their cooperation in its implementation in their respective regions.
NAVTTC is also working to make the curricula available on Mobile Apps, training videos, 3-D stimulators, virtual & augmented reality and Books in PDF in Urdu & English.
