Apprenticeship Act-2018
Another key function of P&D Wing is the implementation of Apprenticeships Act-2018. Apprenticeships of youth in the informal sector including medium and small industry and enterprises are being undertaken in collaboration with the provincial Governments. Primary focus of the intervention is the industry engagement on the pattern adopted by countries with the most developed TVET systems like Germany, UK and Australia where apprenticeship is an important pillar of institute-industry linkages.
Apprenticeship is a preferred mode of training for accruing benefits like reduced costs of trainings, demand-orientation, and higher job placements. In Pakistan, the old and restrictive Apprenticeship Bill has been replaced with an all-encompassing and practicable Apprenticeship Act- 2018 which covers all sectors of the economy including the informal sector. After the promulgation of Apprenticeship Act-2018 in federal territories, all the preparatory work has also been completed such as development of handbooks, contract documents, awareness of industry, etc. and the new laws are ready for implementation.
New system is aimed to strengthen apprenticeship within the country’s skills system in order to enhance training and improve employability. Under the initiative, NAVTTC will have an opportunity to implement the modern Apprenticeship Act-2018 and showcase its replication in the provinces. Through the intended initiative NAVTTC will incentivize the private industry to launch the Apprenticeship Act-2018 and pilot to prepare 25,000 apprentices in all sectors of economy in two year.
Apprenticeship is an established international best practice of learning of employable skills through on-job training, in practice for hundreds years, all over the world where apprentices go to industry three-day a week and attend the institutes for two-day. If implemented in Pakistan it could considerably increase capacity of existing TVET sector in short time. At present, we have industry-based training programs on a very small scale hence greater efforts are required to modernize, upgrade, and further formalize these programs to enhance their impact in terms of improving their quality and availability. A well-crafted apprenticeship system can groom the TVET sector into a more responsive system for bridging the skills gaps and addressing skills mismatch between the institute and industry, in addition to reducing ratio of youth-unemployment in the country.