Solutions of Industry Problems - National University of Technology

Industry Problems in Pakistan and their Solutions

Pakistan’s industry is supposed to develop products through Universities based R&D on the needs of society to make life comfortable and prosperous. However, it has been trying to convert the needs of our society into products directly without intellectuals, academic or research support based involvement of universities. It is obvious that there is no apparent linkage between the society, universities and industry. Pakistan has a very young population; as around 60-65 percent of the population is less than 30 years old. The country has an opportunity to grow by developing its industry through qualified and trained youth. Our academia is not linked with our public and private industry sectors due to the absence of any support mechanism and necessary academic infrastructure, lack of interest and vision. Ultimately the academic knowledge and skills are limited to the classrooms and university laboratories. This has resulted in a workforce which lacks required knowledge-driven technology-based skill sets, necessary to run and revive our industry.

Recently, 4^th industrial revolution is bringing a wave of innovative and challenging technologies, there is a dire need to acquire high end disruptive technologies and skills essentially required for industry 4.0. To bridge this technological gap hi-tech disruptive technologies and skills centers and institutes are required for each segment of industrial work. From Automation to cyber-physical systems, IoT to artificial intelligence, all these domains require extensive training and adequacy of the workforce to take Pakistani industry to a new horizon. Moreover, due to the lack of technological development, the construction of normal twenty story building takes 3-4 years in Pakistan as compared to 2-3 months in the advanced countries. Similarly, automobile manufacturing industry does not practically exist in Pakistan as major car brands merely assemble the parts imported from abroad.

NUTECH is the first ‘University for Industry’ in the country to create, develop, implement and promote technologies, high end skills and entrepreneurship for the country by catering for all the eight levels of education as per the National Qualification Framework (NQF). Learning systems of NUTECH are designed to promote science, engineering and skills technology based knowledge eco-system to inspire the youth as promising entrepreneurs of tomorrow. Initially following key industry sectors are considered on priority for identifying and defining actual requirements / problems & providing solutions:

Construction & Allied Industry
Automotive (Aviation, Railways & Automobile) Industry
Textile, Leather Products and garments Industry
Electronics, Computer, Communication & Information Technology
Bio-pharma, Biomedical Technology Industry
Plastics, Polymer and chemical industry of Technical Vocational Education & Training (TVET) for Industry

Way Forward

Around 3 million young people enter the industrial labor market in Pakistan, every year. However, the formal TVET system can only accommodate fewer than 500,000 trainees annually. As a result, a large percentage of youth drifts into the informal sector every year, where they participate in a traditional ustadd-shagird (Master-apprentice) vocational training. Furthermore, the employability rate of graduates from the formal TVET system is very low due to lack of quality and relevance of the training content. The gap between the nature of industry demand and questionable quality of supply of skilled workforce is due to limited cooperation between the public and the private sector industry and that of Govt organizations, accrediting bodies, universities and TVET institutes in TVET planning, governed and delivery. As a consequence, the workforce produced lacks the skills needed in the industry and business market. NUTECH Skills Development Department (NSDD) was established to standardize technical and vocational education at the national level and bring the skills development training at par with the best international practices of TVET programs.