Education
According to the report, only 10% of IT graduates in Pakistan are employable.
IT is a booming sector in Pakistan that has the potential to grow in new heights over the years. However, despite the vast pool of talented computer scientists, software engineers and IT specialists, employability remains a major concern for the masses. According to a new report by Gallup Pakistan, the nation's top IT firms only employ 10% of students from lower-level universities. Software companies with low-end IT services, however, employ 50 percent of these graduates.
Gallup Pakistan is the country's leading social science center, and its most recent analysis of low-level university IT graduates also paints a troubling picture.
The study points out that Pakistan needs to focus on human capital related to technological innovations. The best way to improve employability, according to Gallup, is to offer skills to students who are wanted by the IT industry and the digital economy.
There is currently a skills gap between graduates from high-level and low-level universities. The discrepancy points at a lack of national IT skills instruction. The lack of fluency in English has also been described as a possible issue for university students due to lack of trained instructors and current curricula.
It is estimated that Pakistan's top universities produce 25.000 IT students, but just 5,000 are hired by top local IT firms. The remaining students obviously do not meet the selection criterion because of their deficient qualifications and lack of appropriate skills.
The positive thing is that the IT Ministry is mindful of this gap of expertise across the country and has also sought to set up an agency to improve the standard of IT curricula. The idea is that IT education will be taken up to global levels across Pakistan.
