ISLAMABAD - The Senate Standing Committee on Education and Training was informed Friday that the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis have occupied the hostels and auditorium of Ministry of Education and Training that has hindered the process of imparting trainings to provincial organisations.
The officials of the Ministry of Education and Training informed the committee that Pakistan Manpower Institute (PMI), an attached department of Ministry of Education and Training, had constructed a hostel and an auditorium with the cost of Rs 25 million and Rs 50 million respectively in 2000 for the trainings of public and private organisations from across the country but due to occupation of hostel and auditorium by the two said ministries, officials from provinces avoid to attend the trainings owing to lack of accommodation facilities.
The Chairman Committee Abdul Nabi Bangash directed the Secretaries of both the ministries to appear before the committee in the next meeting. He said the committee would make every effort to get back the buildings for the PMI so that the people from far-flung areas could also get trainings.
The Ministry officials gave detailed briefing of its various departments dealing with the local and international scholarships, fellowships, trainings, workshops, and seminars. The committee members objected over the criteria and procedure adopted by the ministry for the award of different fellowships and training courses both at the national and international levels.
According to the province-wise data presented by the Ministry officials in 2010-11 the
Pakistan National Commission for UNESCO (PNCU) coordinated 16 short-term foreign trainings and out of them 14 trainings were attended by the federal government officials while one each was attended by the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa officials. In 2011-12 the department coordinated 27 foreign trainings and of them 5 were attended by the federal government officials while 8 officials from Punjab, 4 from Sindh, 2 from KPK, 6 from Balochistan and 1 from AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan each attended the trainings. Senator Abdul Nabi Bangash and other Senators including Senator Afrasiab Khattak and Senator Najma Hameed objected that why in every national and international trainings, workshops and courses majority of the officials were sent from the federal capital and no candidate was selected for any training or course from FATA. They said the ministry should streamline its procedure and criteria and should give preference to the underprivileged areas where the feeling of deprivedness is already high.
It was also informed that during the last two years 54 fully funded foreign courses were offered through another department of the Ministry, Akhtar Hameed Khan-National Centre for Rural Development (AHK-NCRD) but due to devolution of the ministries and visa issues with Indian government only 14 courses could be availed. They also informed that about 6 opportunities offered by Taiwan could not be availed, as the government does not recognize the Taiwan government.
The Chairman Committee regretted that people have been eagerly searching for such opportunities in spite of that the ministry failed to nominate people to avail the trainings. He directed the Ministry of Education and Training Secretary Qamar Zaman to send the copy of the letters for nominations of officials for the trainings or courses to the committee members too along with the provincial governments so that the processes can be followed by the committee and no opportunity could be lost by the bad management. State Minister for Education and Training Sardar Shahjehan Yousaf also attended the meeting.