Islamabad, December 02, 2022 (PPI-OT):Minister of Federal Education and Professional Training addressed the Closing Session of “International Summit on Higher Education and Workforce Development in 21st Century” organized by US AID and HEC on Friday, December 2, 2022, Marriott Hotel, Islamabad. Honourable US Senator of Utah State Mr. Keith Grover also attended the event.

Federal Minister said that in the back drop of USAID’s Higher Education System Strengthening Activity (HESSA) between Government of USA and Pakistan which is worth $19 Million, is yet another initiative that will support our 16 universities in improving their institutional and technical capacities in delivering market-relevant education and research.

Rana Tanveer said that we should focus on improving institutional governance, curriculum, access and quality, teaching and research practices, industry-academia linkages, and climate change adaptation.

Rana Tanveer Hussain said that it is a reality-whether we like it or not-most stakeholders complain that our education system does not equip the students with the knowledge, experience, skills, or values needed to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

It is clear to everyone that business as usual is not an option to reverse this trend. We need to be bold, innovative, and committed to achieve the three-fold objective of improving access, quality, and relevance of our higher education.

Also, in moving forward, advancing social justice by mainstreaming marginalized communities into higher education system needs to be prioritized. Federal Minister said that the key challenges that are faced by our higher education sector that need to be addressed are low and inequitable access; traditional teaching and research techniques; weak industry and academia linkages; weak management and governance amongst a myriad of others.

I urge the policy makers and practitioners present here to review and revamp our curricula; invest in building capacities of our teaching and research faculty; bring about a paradigm shift in the moving away from subject-focused, rote-learning to an interdisciplinary approach to research and education.

Minister continued and said that if we invest in our higher education system in terms of strengthening leadership and policies; enhancing faculty’s teaching and research capacities; strengthening industry-academia linkages; and improving in student support services-this will result in a system that churns out well-rounded graduates with potential to have secured livelihoods. The innovations, experiences and lessons learned from HESSA will be instrumental in scaling up the best practices throughout the sector.

At the end Rana Tanveer extended his gratitude to the HESSA project team for bringing together a highly accomplished group of thought leaders, policy makers, academicians, and students to deliberate over issues that are urgent and critical for improving our graduates’ employability and workforce development in Pakistan.

Concluding his remarks, Federal Minister of Federal Education and Professional Training Rana Tanveer Hussain thanked the US Government and USAID for their continuous support to Pakistan’s higher education system in the form of both infrastructure development and institutional capacity building.

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