ISLAMABAD, Jul 19 (APP):Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board (KPITB) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Pakistan has inaugurated its multifaceted training programme to train 1200 graduates for digital jobs here on Friday.
Speaking at the inauguration of “Digital Jobs Through Advanced Digital Skill in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa” KPITB Managing Director Shahbaz Khan said that the training programme had been designed while keeping in mind the market trends, job opportunity and income magnitude.
Earlier, the previous governments had initiated training programmes without ascertaining the average salary and job number available, which left the trained youth in the lurch without any employment, he added. “It will also safe public money as the project has been designed with a prudent approach,” Khan said.
“The global studies reveal at least 120,000 digital jobs are available in the market across the world. However, the people linked with this job are earning around US$107,000 to US $109,000 globally whereas the amount as per market trends here would offer US $ 80,000 which is a handsome amount,” he added.
Digital economy, he said could not be achieved without public private partnership whereas UNDP’s collaboration had been magnanimous with KP government.
As per the training programme, 500 graduates would be imparted digital skills on Amazon, 300 on Microsoft and 500 on Big Data, he informed.
The project would involve three phases starting from training of the graduates whereas the next phase would include value added certification of the trained and in the final step these trained would be connected through national and international corporations for employment, he noted.
“The revenues for Big Data and Business Analytics Solutions forecast to reach
US $260 billion in 2022 which is more than half of the country’s GDP. It is an opportunity for Pakistan to add a major chunk of foreign exchange through exporting the services of these trained experts to global companies,” Shahbaz Khan said.
The project consultant Muhammad Umar among others briefed the participants over the project’s mechanisms and prospects.
Umar said that at least 30 per cent women had been incorporated in the training in the project. “Our focus is to get maximum female youth involved in the training programme,” he added.
Talking to APP, Shahbaz Khan said that Youth Early Age Programming was initiated by KPITB at primary level in public schools. “We randomly selected 300 schools including the ones from remote areas of Upper, Lower Dir, Hazara and others. The students from grade 6-8 have been given the facility whereas it has been a daunting task and challenge to provide trainers and lab facilities in distant areas. They are now developing games and mobile phone applications,” he added.
Shahbaz said that these students of public schools had proved their mettle at Compeq 2019 competition organized by NUST where all the leading institutes had participated but the students of KP’s government schools bagged the top 3 positions.
The representative of UNDP, donor agencies and project partners also participated at the inaugural session.
