The Sub-Committee on Classification of ICT Skills, operating under the National Committee on ICT Skills and Capacity Development chaired by the Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication, convened a meeting to deliberate on Pakistan’s evolving information and communication technology skills landscape. The session brought together representatives from key government bodies and industry associations to work through the classification of both existing and emerging skills in demand across the sector.
The meeting was chaired by Doctor Shahzeb Malik, Member IT at the Government of Sindh, and attended by Doctor Henna Karamat Durrani, Chief Skills Development Officer at Pakistan Software Export Board and Secretary of the Sub-Committee, along with Director General Skills at the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication, Masood, and Vice Chairman of Pakistan IT Industry Association, Raheel Iqbal. Representatives from the National Vocational and Technical Training Commission and Ignite National Technology Fund also participated, alongside other key stakeholders drawn from across Pakistan’s technology and skills development ecosystem.
Participants at the meeting focused on classifying existing and emerging information and communication technology skills, working to identify priority skills gaps that need to be addressed as the sector continues to evolve. Discussions also centred on developing strategies to better align national training initiatives with the evolving requirements of industry, an effort officials described as necessary to ensure that Pakistan’s workforce development programmes keep pace with rapidly changing technology demands both domestically and in international markets.
The Sub-Committee’s work builds on a broader push by Pakistani institutions to strengthen the link between academic and vocational training output and actual industry needs, following the earlier formation of a multi-stakeholder Steering Committee in November last year that oversaw the rollout of the country’s first National Skill Competency Test for information technology graduates. That initiative, involving the Higher Education Commission, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, Pakistan Software Export Board, Pakistan IT Industry Association, and the National Computing Education Accreditation Council, was designed to address longstanding concerns that inconsistent skill standards and weak alignment with market needs have limited the growth of high value technology exports from the country.
Officials said the outcomes of the Sub-Committee’s classification exercise are expected to contribute to evidence based workforce planning going forward, helping strengthen Pakistan’s overall information and communication technology talent pipeline and supporting the broader digital economy. By bringing together provincial IT departments, federal ministries, industry associations, and vocational training bodies under a single coordinating structure, the initiative reflects continued efforts to build a more systematic approach to skills development in Pakistan’s technology sector, one intended to keep training programmes responsive to both current industry requirements and the emerging skill sets expected to shape the sector’s future.
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