The KP Caretaker Minister for Revenue, Industries, Commerce & Technical Education expressed disappointment over recent suspension of funds & salaries for TEVTA employees.
The KP Caretaker Minister for Revenue, Industries, Commerce, and Technical Education expressed disappointment over the recent suspension of funds and salaries for TEVTA (Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority) employees.
He pledged that he would work sincerely to get the staff’s salaries and funds released as soon as possible. He clarified, however, that TEVTA had to develop into a successful and self-sustaining entity that depended on the labour of its own staff rather than becoming a burden on the public exchequer.
He was speaking at a Civil Secretariat Peshawar briefing on the performance of TEVTA. On this occasion, Prof. Abdul Ghaffar, the managing director of TEVTA, announced that 106 technical education and vocational training centres operated by TEVTA are located throughout the province and provide technical education and training to thousands of male and female students each year.
The caretaker minister praised TEVTA’s overall performance and stated that the importance of technical education is something that many countries have paid attention to in order to reach their pinnacle of prosperity and development.
He added that organisations like TEVTA could only succeed if their results and gains outweighed their expenses. But regrettably, he pointed out, just like in so many other fields, the development wheel is turning upside down here as well.
He regretted that while TEVTA was rightly expected to provide jobs for its graduating students in accordance with market demand, the situation would be very different if it began collecting information on the employment of its students in the pertinent fields, as many of its young people and their parents are experiencing unemployment.
The minister said an institution can only advance if its teaching and administrative staff are shown to be cost-effective; however, in this case, TEVTA staff spending increased from two to three billion rupees with negligible to nonexistent results and benefits.
Instead of hiring new or additional staff, he instructed the TEVTA staff to work on a realistic basis, return the employees who were previously working from officers’ homes to the offices, and engage the surplus pool of employees.
The acting minister also stated that public institutions, such as those that provide technical education, will perform better under a model of public-private partnership.
The outgoing students can get guaranteed jobs, he continued, if courses are developed with the input and demands of business, the industrialist community, and the relevant chambers of commerce. Instead of operating technical education and vocational training institutions in a unilateral, traditional manner, he said.
He then gave the TEVTA authorities the order to create training programs that would be tailored to the needs and demands of the local business community, trade community, and economy, with an emphasis on information technology.
TEVTA high ups assured the minister of improvements in the performance and outcomes of the organisation and that they were seriously implementing the directives of the caretaker minister in this regard.