Unified certificate regime on the cards

Islamabad : A unified certificate regime will be introduced in the country through which courses prepared under the National Vocational Qualification Framework will be enforced in all vocational training institutes countrywide. Also, to develop awareness of this system, awareness seminars will be organised countrywide with stakeholders from all provinces being in attendance.

This was decided during a meeting of all provincial Qualification Awarding Bodies here at the National Vocational and Technical Training Commission Headquarters, which was attended members of the Punjab, Sindh and KPK boards of technical education, Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Jammu and Kashmir trade testing boards, and Punjab Vocational Training Council.

Addressing the participants of the meeting, NAVTTC Executive Director Dr Nasir Khan said the commission was striving to bring improvement in the standards of certification so that identification and acceptance of certificate could be amplified at national and international levels.

He said in order to achieve that, all testing boards would have to work collectively so that a unified certification system was put in place through which not only the original and fake certificates could be identified but the trust of youths on the system was strengthened as well.

In the meeting, the vital responsibility of the boards concerned was also discussed that they must identify and halt the fake certificates issuing and unregistered institutes so that the standard of the training might not be compromised at any cost.

Dr Nasir said those getting certificates by unfair means or channels not only created problems for genuine certified work force internationally but they're also responsible for bringing the country bad name.

It was decided unanimously in the meeting that a unified certificate regime will be ensured in the country through which courses prepared under National Vocational Qualification Framework (NVQF) shall be enforced in all the vocational training institutes countrywide. Furthermore to develop awareness of this system, awareness seminars will be organized country wide and the participation of the concerned stakeholders from all provinces will be ensured.

The primary agenda of the meeting included 'standardised suitable fee for the assessors, issuance of certificates under the National Qualification Framework, improvement in monitoring system, escalation of assessment standards of NVQF, increase in the technical efficiency and capacity of QABs, maintain data on NVQF Registry, making the NVQF National Support Unit active, and accreditation of institutes in all provinces.