Engro Energy Limited and Siemens have joined hands to upgrade and develop the Government Polytechnic Institute in Mithi, Tharparkar District. This association will provide aspiring youth in Sindh a chance to gain access to vocational and technical training and enhance employability opportunities in the employment market.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) in this regard has been signed by the CEO of Engro Energy Limited, Ahsan Zafar Syed and the Managing Director of Siemens Pakistan, Mr. Helmut Von Struve. Management of both Engro and Siemens believe that their collaboration will ensure better socio-economic opportunities for the youth in Sindh – specially Tharparkar – and result in sustainable improvement in the quality of life of these young people living in rural regions. Earlier, Engro Energy has formed an Institute Management Committee at the Government Poly-Technique Institute in Mithi with a view to develop and train the local youth for upcoming industrial projects in the Thar region. Engro Energy in collaboration with other partners has been running the institute for almost a year now and currently the institute provides vocational courses to almost 500 students in different fields.
Under the arrangement with Siemens, Engro aims to enhance the capacity of the institute and deploy latest equipment and technology for providing teach-ware and curriculum for upgraded education facilities. Both the organizations will work for conveying suitable training concepts, knowledge and handling of newly provided equipment to the trainers and teachers.
The collaboration between Engro and Siemens will be for designing of course curriculum and syllabus for medium and long term (up to three years) programs in Vocational Education and Training, and Diploma Programs in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, thereby enriching the respective curriculum by demand-driven industry-linked elements.
“We strongly believe in encouraging the development and education of local talent, preparing the brightest minds with the skills they need for Pakistan’s future,” said Helmut von Struve, Managing Director of Siemens in Pakistan. “Vocational training is an important part of our responsibility to society, and our ongoing commitment to supporting sustainable economic growth in Pakistan.”
Commenting at the ceremony, Ahsan Zafar Syed – Chief Executive Officer of Engro Energy said: “We, at Engro, believe in the philosophy of inclusive development whereby we strive to remain a force of good in the communities that host us. This association with Siemens today is testament to our motto of developing a prosperous and skilled Thar. With a majority youth-population, Tharparkar presents significant opportunity to develop a skilled and trained workforce which can improve socio-economic opportunities and living standards in the region.”
“The youth of Tharparkar and Sindh do not lack the talent, but the opportunities to hone them into a craft,” said Kashif Soomro, Director Human Resources at Engro Energy. “Over the past few years we have been consistently working to improve and enhance access to educational and learning opportunities for thousands of individuals from Thar and Sindh. The focus on technical and vocational training underscores this key focus area where we want to develop Thar as an integral cluster of skilled and highly trained manpower – thereby delivering on our promise of creating dividends for a wide sector of the community.”
The existing curriculum in Electrical and Mechanical will be improved coupled with upgrading syllabus of existing short courses, with varying duration of up to one year, such as welding, fabrication, instrumentation, mechanical, electrical, etc. in addition, the trained professionals of Siemens will help in imparting training to students as well as training faculty at the college besides Training the Trainers. Siemens will assist in selection of technical staff and support in provision of High-end Electrical, Automation, Mechanical, Mechatronics Labs in addition to labs for short courses such as welding and fabrication.
