AmanTech is a one of its kind project of Aman Foundation that provides vocational training and soft skills to Pakistan’s underserved youth. Moving forward with the aim of changing mindsets and transforming lives, it also helps the students compete on a far better footing at both the local as well as international level.
The courses offered at the Institute vary from three to six months and even a whole year. The curriculum entails courses in Automobile, Electrical, Mechanical, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning, Welding and Pipework, Electronics, AutoCAD, Civil, Carpentery, Masonry and Plumbing.
IDG got a chance to meet the Shams ul Qayyum, CEO of AmanTech and Ali Samir Oosman, Strategy & Program Development Manager at AmanTech to know more about AmanTech Intitute.
When asked about the mission and vision of AmanTech, CEO Shams ul Qayyum said:
The idea, the big vision is to change the landscape of vocational training in Pakistan, and create lively hood for youth and make a better Pakistan.
On co-operation from the government and the industry, he said
“Everybody is happy and excited about the program, the administration and provinces are also getting engaged and showing a lot of support. We have success stories from KPK and Sindh; and we are also working with Punjab”.
Ali Samir Oosman, Strategy & Program Development Manager at AmanTech shares that the students at the institute are trained not only theoretically but also practically. He added,
“We train our students in everything from AutoCAD depending on their trade, every student is also trained on Microsoft Office because in today’s day and age if we expect our students to enter a job at bottom level and climb the ladder to become a manager of teams; they need to have skills to know MS Office, which is Excel, PowerPoint and Word at the basics.
It is needed from reporting to projections, they need to have a good draft. No matter what trades the students are in everyone learn MS Office and if they have trade that’s specific to design they learn AutoCAD as well.
Then we have our simulators, these are made to assess a problem with a certain trade, we have refrigerator, air-conditioner and automobile simulators. These simulators give instructed set of problems and student has to actually figure out the problem to solve it to get a practical experience in the trade”.
He further adds, “We have also introduced Mechatronics in our institute; Mechatronics is a fairly new trade but it is the future of the industry. We have actually worked with our German partners and Siemens has provided us with a machine for Mechatronics training which will allow the students to train at the latest technology in the industry”.
Enlightening us on the recruitment program at AmanTech, Shams ul Qayyum told us that the institute has its own placement team which had recruited 60% of the its students locally as well as internationally out of 3500 graduates in last five years.
Technology being an integral part of AmanTech, the institute has also adapted to this new technology using Microsoft dynamics and developed a system through which they can track their students from the day they enter the system, to the recruitment stage and to when they exit. They have adapted the technology is to actually monitor their impact to see that what impact they have made onto the lives of these students, when they graduate two years from the Institute.
When asked about the challenges, CEO, AmanTech tells, “Two challenges that we face, first one is to engage the kids to make sure they understand this program and after that, ensure that their job placement is done on the time. These are two major challenges which we have and these are ongoing challenges on which we have to keep working”.
As social media is so common these days and almost everyone has access to it, many organizations are using it as a platform to carry out their campaigns and other activities; we asked Ali Samir about what role social media has played for AmanTech. He says, “We haven’t really started any campaign on social media, as you know it has to be social and well packaged. But we are working to support our worker campaign that will be executing in next few months. We also keep our students up to date through our social media account where we post updates regarding our business, successes, highlights and announcements. So we are constantly communicating with our student body regarding our work though Social Media”.
AmanTech also supports entrepreneurship; the institute has a separate department for it. It is venturing a new project, Injaz Pakistan, funded by KYI; where they arrange workshops regarding work readiness and entrepreneurship. Groups of students at AmanTech have launched a few businesses which will be seed funded by the foundation in collaboration with their partners such as Musk. The institute will mentor and guide the students, help them make proper business plans and look at it through proper business perspective so that they can launch their businesses.
Sharing with us a success story of the institute, Ali Samir proudly tells, “At Aman tech, we have a monthly cost of training which is a small fee of Rs.1000 – 2000 per month depending on the trade student selects. Some students who can’t afford it, we sponsor them through zakat and other funds. One of our students when he left AmanTech and got a Job in Dubai, with his first pay cheque he wanted to send money back to sponsor the fee for another student. And just that story in a nutshell, encompasses everything that we are doing here in terms of changing mind-sets and transforming lives and doing onto others what you would do for yourself”.
Every single student who gets inspired motivates other students in our institution; this is why we are here. Even if a single student gets a job, everyone gets excited and there is always dynamics to find out what is the best way to go to the industry, find out the gaps and fix them and make sure lively hoods are increased in terms of numbers and population across Pakistan”, CEO, AmanTech ends the interview on a positive note.
