ABDUL RASHEED AZAD

ISLAMABAD: In a bid to promote sustainable national productivity in educational institutions, the National Productivity Organization (NPO) has signed an MoU with Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (ICT-PEIRA) to collaborate for high-level initiatives by the NPO under 1st productivity movement of Pakistan.

The MoU signing ceremony was held here on Wednesday attended by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) NPO Muhammad Alamgir Chaudhry and Zia Batool chairperson ICT-PEIRA along with senior officials from both organizations. The MOU is aimed at initiating and extending effective collaboration for the activities initiated by the NPO under productivity movement of Pakistan for the industry, agriculture and service sector.

The MOU is focused on the fact that both organisations know the importance of productivity and its awareness campaign to provide useful and relevant best practices to the persons/organizations, through APO, NPO, and ICT-PEIRA that will ultimately contribute to the economic growth of the country.

Both organizations will join hands in the implementation of relevant components of national productivity master plan aligning with sustainable national productivity such as to organize the awareness sessions, training programs on productivity for the students and teachers, capacity building of ICT-PEIRA staff/teachers of the private educational institutions for imparting training to the students of private schools, productivity walk in ICT, and dissemination of curriculum and booklets on productivity to the students of institutions under its domain.

Talking to the ceremony, the CEO NPO shared that productivity, competitiveness and innovation are the key driving factors to compete globally. Pakistan seems low on productivity and there is a strong need to create awareness on importance of productivity to general public, industry and academia. Countries such as Singapore, Korea, Japan, China, and Malaysia are few examples who transformed their economies based on improved productivity, competitiveness and innovative strategies. Among other key success factors, top leadership commitment and massive campaign are the basic requirements in bringing productivity culture. Similarly, the role of key stakeholders i.e. government, industry, academia and employer federation is very important.

The Government of Pakistan is very keen to focus on improving competitiveness and productivity. The only viable solution to overcome the economic challenges (low exports and higher imports through influx by the countries having higher productivity levels) is the way to higher productivity. In this regard, the government has approved the PSDP funded project of NPO “Improving Competitiveness through Sustainable National Productivity (SNP) - Launching Productivity Movement in Pakistan”.

Similarly, the NPO has taken some key strategic initiatives including “Development of National Productivity Master Plan of Pakistan” which is under process and being undertaken by Korean Development Institute (KDI) through assistance from Asian Productivity Organization (APO).

The plan will identify macro- and micro-level productivity growth constraints in order to recommend result-driven solutions.

Under the policy, the Ministry of Industries and Production (MoIP) is leading agenda of “Reforming Policy Incentive Structure for the Industrial Sector” and one of the key TOR is “Launching of a National Program on Targeted Productivity Enhancement” that is led by NPO, Pakistan.