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Pakistan aims to engineer more careers
Farhan Bokhari, FT Syndication Service
11/21/2004
ISLAMABAD: "We have to create a large network of polytechnics and other vocational institutions to train people who can support engineers. That's how our engineering will prosper."
So goes the view from Akram Sheikh, deputy chairman of Pakistan's national planning commission, and a firm advocate of overhauling the structure of the country's engineering education. He argues that plans for improving opportunities for engineers cannot succeed without an equally aggressive effort to create opportunities for support staff -effectively para-engineers.
As with many others, Sheikh believes that Pakistan's recent economic recovery will remain hard to sustain unless its engineers receive a career lift in their home country.
During the last financial year (July-June), Pakistan's large-scale manufacturing grew more than 18 per cent - an annual record - which reinforced the view that prospects for technical careers are bound to improve as time goes by.
A good part of the recent industrial expansion was driven by fresh investments into the country's large textile sector, which is poised to benefit from investments of about $6.0bn from 2002 to the end of this year, in preparation for the arrival of the global free trade regime from January 2005.
The prospect of competing against some of the world's best textile producers without the protection of fixed quotas for different countries has prompted Pakistan's textile industrialists to invest in modernising their plants. But industries other than textiles have grown rapidly too, reinforcing the view that there could be more jobs for engineers in the coming years.
Last year, production of new air conditioners rose more than 650 per cent while the numbers of cars produced in Pakistan doubled to more than 100,000 - a significant jump from the year before.
Such increasing demand for industrial goods is driven in large measure by sharply reduced interest rates which remain almost half those of (up to 19 per cent) five years ago.
Sheikh, however, agrees that the best qualified new graduates from engineering schools prefer to leave Pakistan for further education followed by careers in the western world unless there are substantial incentives to stay in the country.
"Our challenge is to reverse this brain drain," says Sheikh.
To that end, the government of General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, has put together a plan for the state-owned engineering schools across the country, offering new incentives to young faculty members to head out of the country for doctorate degrees in engineering.
The scholarships given to such young professionals are accompanied by formal commitments to return to Pakistan on completion of their higher studies to take up positions as assistant professors at engineering schools.
By doing so, the government hopes to create a large resource of faculty members in the country who give an impetus to higher-level research while increasing the number of engineers trained in the country.
Across the job market, engineers often lament the lack of new career opportunities. Some of the best-qualified fresh engineering graduates looking for opportunities find start-up monthly salaries of approximately R15,000 ($250) although these frequently triple within five years.
However, many young graduates complain of remaining unemployed until they can use connections to secure a post either with a private company or the government.
Such challenges have forced many engineers enrol on an MBA degree course, which was not the norm until about five years ago. The brightest engineers who secure admission to an MBA programme, either at the Lahore University of Management Sciences or Karachi University's Institute of Business Administration - Pakistan's two top business schools - often find their first salary packages jumping by more than twice compared with those for graduates with just an engineering degree.
Sheikh, however, notes that for the long-term future of engineering careers in Pakistan, industrial expansion alone is not the only answer. He favours tangible steps to create training opportunities for assistant engineers - a trade common in Pakistan until the 1970s and 80s when polytechnics across the country provided diploma courses to students who failed to be invited to enrol in universities.
In the past two decades, two equally relevant factors have caused a deterioration in the quality for a wide range of functionaries such as mansons and plumbers, who provided the necessary back-up to civil engineers, or technicians who assisted mechanical engineers, or electricians who backed electrical engineers.
Many such second-tier engineering support staff have migrated to the oil-rich Middle East, drawn by extravagant salaries and other benefits. But Pakistan's failure to expand the network of polytechnics and increase emphasis on education largely being in the private rather than the public sector is also responsible for the falling numbers of qualified support staff.
In spite of such issues, many of Pakistan's brightest young graduates, including engineers, are forced to stay at home-thanks to hardened attitudes among western Immigration officials following the New York 9/11 attacks.
Many Pakistani students still bemoan their failure to obtain visas to pursue higher degrees in the west - especially in the US apparently because immigration officials prefer to deny permission to prospective entrants where there is the remotest possibility of links to militant groups.
"There are many painful cases of young Pakistani students being refused visas to go abroad " says a senior government official in Islamabad. "The positive side to this situation however is that more students now have reason to find the best opportunities in Pakistan and it is here that we can give a new start to our engineers, doctors, economists or any other working professional."
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