ROLE OF VOCATIONAL TRAININGS IN PAKISTAN ECONOMY A CASE STUDY

INTRODUCTION

The role of education in facilitating social and economic progress has long been recognized. Education improves functional and analytical ability and thereby opens opportunities for individuals and also groups to achieve greater access to labor markets and livelihoods. A better educated labor force is essential if we are to meet the labor supply requirements of faster growth. Education is not only an instrument of enhancing efficiency but is also an effective tool of widening and augmenting democratic participation and upgrading the overall quality of individual and societal life.
Skills and knowledge are the engines of economic growth and social development of any country. Countries with higher and better levels of knowledge and skills respond more effectively and punctually to challenges and opportunities of globalization.
Grubb (1985) states that vocational education can be used effectively to combat dropouts. More specifically, it is believed to be an effective answer to reduce unemployment and migration to urban centers (Lillis and Hogan, 1983).
Vocational training generally refers to prepare people for work .It normally equips the people with certain skills to perform job .A general and internationally accepted definition states that, “ Vocational Training is an activity directed to identifying and developing human capabilities for a productive and satisfying working life. Accordingly those who take part in vocational training activities should be able to understand individually or collectively, to influence working conditions and social norms” (international labor Conference 1975)
The concept has been very dynamic in nature since the beginning and has been used differently in different times. For the first time, the concept was officially recognized by international labor organization through its recommendation 57 in 1939.Since then vocational training is being used to increase employability of people .The ultimate result of vocational training is to enable people with skills to earn and increase the economic activities.


PROBLEM STATEMENT

In economic terms vocational training is always an investment in human capital .Because it focus on equipping the people with skills they lack to perform up to the level ,the society demands from them .It is no longer possible to “achieve higher levels of productivity ,competitiveness and quality with an approach of limited and confined training “
Vocational trainings throughout the world are used to enhance labor force participation which reduce the unemployment because the skilled people start participating in jobs. This occupation mobility raises the income level of people .The raise in income reduces poverty level in economy. The vocational trainings in the industrial sectors are very necessary to curb the evil of poverty.
Sizable majority of the Pakistan population is wasting their skill and talents by sitting indoors idle after completing their studies from prominent institutions. Vocational centers are an effective tool towards skill development. Such training centers can provide such people with technical education so that they can play their part in the process of national development.
There is a large number of unemployed youths in pakistan who lack skills and those who either drop out of the school system or fail to qualify for admission in the polytechnic institutes and colleges. Vocational training accommodates and caters to such unemployed youths through enabling them to participate in gainful employment.

Main objectives
The following main objectives will be achieved during process of this research.
To find out the improvement in the income and employment opportunities for the trained people
To assess the effectiveness of the training quality
To analyze social change among the trained community members

Hypothesis
Vocational trainings positively contribute towards income generation of trained people.
Vocational trainings positively contribute towards the social change of trained people.
LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Solow (1957), Human resource development particularly improves skill levels of the workforce, impacts positively on economic growth, raises productivity levels and reduces unemployment. She further adds that in the changing scenario, the types of skills demanded in the international labor market are changing and better skilled workers are being preferred over semi-skilled and unskilled workers.
Siegfried. E (1998) in his study focuses on the analysis of evaluations of vocational training programs for the people affected by unemployment, for unskilled people and various disadvantaged populations. The vocational training can be used for the unemployed people to put their skills in right deficiency and therefore as a process of producing certain desired changes in the behavior of trainees. It can be viewed as a form of personal professional development and therefore as a process of change which is self-regulating and autonomous which involves enabling, developing and providing opportunities for the professional support and promotion of trainees.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report (2001) human capital is the knowledge and skills derived from education, training and experience and considered a most valuable resource. According to the report, identify human capital as knowledge, skills and attributes including perseverance. Investment in the human capital from the individual’s perspective generates an economic benefit as the potential for employment rates of return and earnings are increased. The greater people are skilled and trained more likely they are to be involved in civic activities within the community including volunteering and charity giving and a lower risk of criminal activity.
Davey. K. (2004) linking the Vocational Education and Training to Engagement of Communities in productive activities states that vocational education and training in Engaging Communities and in social partnerships have proven to be helpful in addressing the needs of young people and communities in developing a culture of lifelong learn. It fosters sustainability in the long term. Learning has been viewed as a productive means of dealing with rapid change in the social and economic context. The learning communities actively purse initiatives such as securing employment, developing new skills and creating viable enterprises that provide greater security and potential for independence.
Kazmi S.W (2005) investment in priority areas of education and skills development become very important for reducing the gap between knowledge based workforce and a low-skilled workforce. She further finds that Human resource development has emerged as the primary and most effective means for reducing absolute poverty, reducing gender-oriented and inter-generational income inequalities through improved and marketable skills.
Usman mustafa, Kalba Abbas and Amara Saeed(2005) Training and skills development play vital role in development. The demand for vocationally trained and technically educated human resource rises with every step towards industrialization and modernization of production units and work premises. Therefore, skill and capital are complementary. The paper specifically reviews and analyses the status of vocational training related policies and practices and their impact on the development of human resource in Pakistan. There exists a wide gap between demand and supply of skilled manpower and lack of coordination among government and private agencies. Pakistan has favorable demographic transition trend towards vocational training, therefore, there is a need to use it properly.
World Bank report (2005) highlights some critical issues in its findings regarding the issues for vocational training and education in developing countries. According to its report the Governments are seeking to create nationally recognized qualifications framework. The management of the vocational system is fragmented and require a logical and efficient organizational structure. Rigid regulatory barriers prohibit the private sector from becoming more prominent in the vocational training programmes. Financing of vocational institutes occur in an unstructured manner. Vocational education enjoys unfavorable comparisons to academic qualifications. Qualifications and training are not providing the necessary employability skills needed by local industry.
Aqila Khatoon(2006) This research is an effort to identify the weaknesses and strengths of the vocational training provisions. It also focuses on the solutions to be adopted to make vocational system more effective. The vocational training is provided at some of the school as part of regular education programme. It is usually offered in primary school as prevocational and as vocational at secondary school. However all the schools do not have trained staff in vocational guidance, vocational assessment and job counseling. The Vocational trainers are not technical persons in some of the school although they are teaching some kind of technical skills. Therefore the level of expertise in the special person is not of the level, which could effectively help in seeking the job or retaining a job if got through networking or efforts of the school. The vocational schools do not have follow up system once the student is out of school after successful completion of course. The employers do not bother about provision of special needs like toileting or machine modifications to suit the special person. This situation affects the efficiency of a special person negatively. The employers are reluctant to hire special persons due to the fear that it may affect the output. Therefore the employers do not follow the quota system and they prefer to pay fine for not hiring special persons. The workplaces, factory or office buildings are not special person friendly. The colleague staff is some times not very cooperative enough to help the special person in learning new skills during on job training.(include this or not )
SAARC Journal of Human Resource Development (2007) Both vocational education and skills development have been known to increase productivity of individuals, profitability of employers and expansion of national development. A ‘knowledgeable’ workforce, one that is both highly skilled in a particular occupation and also exhibits flexibility. Pakistan’s workforce is characterized as having low skills and poorly prepared to compete in today’s globalized world. Rapid technological changes now require individuals to learn and relearn skills throughout their working lives by ensuring its relevance and effectiveness.
Islam.M and Mia. A (2007) investigating income generating programmes for poverty alleviation state that basic literacy with the limited objective to retain literacy cannot combat poverty problem of the poorest people. Poverty can be eliminated through gainful wage employment and self-employment. Gainful employment is possible if graduates can rightly identify marketable skills and acquire those skills, which have demand in the local market.After completion of continuing education with an emphasis on vocational training, a probation period of three to four months is very useful for the trainees to gain confidence about their capacity and enhance the chances for their acceptance in employment market situation.
Hafiz etal (2009) conducted study on the development of technical education. In the methodology he used Chi Square test at the level of significance of 0.05 to analyze the data collected .His major findings were that the overall physical facilities were not satisfactory for the training. Similarly, the teachers were academically sound but not abreast with modern teaching techniques. There were no guidance and counseling services in the system.

Zainab Javied (2009) evaluated the impact of Training on Earnings in Pakistan. She used Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method for analysis of data and getting results. She put special emphasis on training in her study and found quality of training given was poor in quality and thus required immediate attention.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Target respondents of the survey are the people having trained under the vocational skills programme of IRM (National Rural Support Programme).Questionnaire containing close ended will be developed .Pilot testing of questioner will be conducted to test validity and reliability of questionnaire.

Sources of Data: It is clear from the nature and main objectives of the study that the primary date will be used. For the collection of primary data the following research instrument will be used.
Structure of the Vocational Training System of Pakistan:
Technical Education and Vocational Training (TEVT) are provided by a number of Federal, Provincial, and Private Agencies. The Vocational Training is skill-intensive and is offered in 27 trades for boys and 18 trades for girls by institutions both in public and private sectors. These institutions are under the administrative control of Federal Labour and Manpower Division, Women Division, Provincial Departments of Education/Labour and Manpower Training, Social Welfare, Small Industries, Agriculture, Agency for Barani Area Development (ABAD), Ex-Servicemen Welfare, WAPDA, Railways, POF, SMEDA, NGOs and private ownership. Besides, there are formal and informal apprenticeship programmes.
Research Instrument
A comprehensive interview schedule will be evolved. The schedule pertains to the following information from the sample.
Training Feature: Duration of Training, Satisfaction regarding Quality of Training, Nature of employment before the training, job relevance to training imparted, and application of training skills in job, whether training imparted is demand of market.

Economic Features: Monthly income; contribution of training in income generation; Employment before/after this training, contribution of training in job Search.

Sample size and its Distribution: In present study a random sample of 50 out of 277 trained members will be interviewed who were trained by IRM (NRSP) from July 2005 to June 2009 under different vocational training disciplines in district Sargodha.

Data Analysis. Data collected through the structured questionnaire will be analyzed by using Chi Square test at the level of significance of 0.05. The formula for calculating chi-squire (2)
is stated as follows:



2 ═ ∑ (fo – fe) / fe


Where


fo = frequency of observed or experimentally determined facts


fe = expected frequency of occurrence on hypothesis (Garrett, 199)

EXPECTED CONCLUSION
To increase Pakistan’s share in world exports and to compete with imported goods domestically, Pakistan has to focus on improving its competitiveness. Upgrading skills to enhance the productivity of our labor force would contribute greatly towards increasing country’s competitiveness. It is, therefore, important to improve the skills profile of Pakistani workers to enabling it to access better jobs in the domestic and international job markets and gain higher incomes.
REFERENCES
Roger L. William R. (1970). “Benefits of Vocational Training: Employability and Mobility”, Industrial Labor Relations review, Vole .23, No .4.
Solow, Robert. 1957. “Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function”, Review of Economics and Statistics, 39:312-320
Seyfried. E (1998).” Evaluation of Quality Aspects in Vocational Training Programmes:”
(OECD) Report (2001). ‘The Well-being of nations: The role of human and social capital’,
Davey. K (2004) The Role of Vocational Education and Training in Engaging Communities.
Career Link, Sacred Heart College, Sorrento, Western Australia, Australia
World Bank report “Skills Development in India: The Vocational Training and Education system”
Islam and Mia. A (2007). “The innovative elements in non-formal education of Bangladesh: Perspective of income generating programmes for poverty alleviation.
Inamulaah H.M.etal (2009), “The Development of Technical Education in Pakistan”

Zainab.J. (2009).”Impact of Training on Earnings: Evidence from Pakistani Industries”.

Usman mustafa, Kalba Abbas and Amara Saeed(2005)”Enhancing Vocational Training for Economic Growth in Pakistan”

Aqila Khatoon(2006) “Analysis of Vocational Training Facilities in Pakistan and Job Adjustment Problems of Special People”

Dr Iftikhar Hussain Shah, Dr Muhammad Ajmal, Fazalur Rahman, Muhammad Naeem Akhter (2011) “A Comparative Study on Vocational Training Structure of Pakistan with British and German Model”

Syeda Wadiat Kazmi (SAARC Journal of Human Resource Development 2007) “Vocational Education and Skills Development: A Case of Pakistan”

REVIEW OF EDUCATION AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING
Over the last several years, modifying, improving and expanding the education system in Pakistan have been a key priority for the government. Many projects and policies have been designed to provide universal access to education, at least up to the primary level. Nevertheless, “Pakistan has far too long remained in a low-level skills trap and if it has to move into the knowledge economy, then it must break out of this trap” (Amjad 2005). In Pakistan, skills development has been the most neglected area. The country has neither been able to improve vocational and job skills nor could repeat the creative and cognitive skills. The lack of focus on interpersonal and social skills resulting in loss of output, exports and employment and slow growth of living standards presents a similar scenario. Various factors have contributed towards the neglect, which includes among other inward looking policies with little emphasis on quality products, focus on primitive technologies and choice of economic activities and the limited supply of skilled workers (Atta-ur-Rehman, et al. 2005). even though the main beneficiaries of the skill development are the producers, they have made little efforts to improve the skills of their workers. Most of the Pakistani firms continue to be on the lower end of technology. The current structure of Vocational Education and Skill Development (VESD) programmes in Pakistan is complex, consisting of many agencies and levels.

VOCATIONAL TRAINING PROGRAMME IN PAKISTAN
Technical Education and Vocational Training (TEVT) in Pakistan TEVT in Pakistan can be divided into three subcomponents: prevocational or school level known as TEVT, higher engineering, and technology education. The history of the introduction and integration of prevocational and vocational courses into the general school education dates back to the early 1950s and many experiments have been conducted. However, these efforts have not had a significant impact on general school education, which from the period of colonial rule was geared toward producing clerks and other office workers rather than technicians, engineers, and scientists. The education policy of 1972–80 suggested a major shift from general education and emphasised relating education to the world of work. This resulted in the introduction of agro-technical studies (wood work, metal work, and electricity), agriculture, and home economics in urban, rural, and girls’ middle schools respectively in grades 6–8. In grades 9–10 introduction of vocational courses of various groups such as agriculture, commerce, home economics, and industrial arts was encouraged. More recently, this approach is reaffirmed under the National Education Policy and Education Sector Reform Programme.
The growth of the TEVT sub-sector is due to the Government’s desire to increase access of rural youths and women to technical education and vocational training to improve their job skills and means of livelihood. The lack of places in the universities also led to expansion of the sub-sector, as it became an alternative channel for youth and school leavers. This resulted in the social demand for more opportunities for and access to TEVT. The Government assumed the main responsibility of providing TEVT to youths with little participation of the private sector. Only during the last few years there has been a growing trend toward encouraging participation of the private sector in TEVT provision. Under the Education Sector Reforms Programme, a number of incentive schemes have been introduced to enlist private sector participation in education and training.
Vocational training caters to unemployed youths who lack skills and those who either drop out of the school system or fail to qualify for admission in the polytechnic institutes and colleges. Expansion in vocational training took place during 1980–1990, and included establishing several training centres and upgrading a number of old ones across the country. The Ministry of Youth Affairs also established 20 youth vocational centres. The duration as well as entry qualifications for different vocational training programmes vary widely. Training programmes range from a few weeks to 2 years and entry qualifications vary from middle to secondary school pass. Vocational courses are more practically oriented compared with technical education. The curriculum of vocational courses comprises 80 percent practical and 20 percent theory. Graduates are expected to perform semiskilled and skilled jobs in various sectors or can be self-employed.