This marriage of education and employability, found under British Council’s Skills for employability programme, is a match made in heaven in a country like Pakistan, where employment opportunities are scarce for rural areas forming more than 60% of the180 million plus population and an economy where 2 million are joining the workforce every year. The programme aims to bridge that gap by helping universities build curriculum more suited to the local job environment.

The endeavour has resulted in the development of a 3-year diploma in Associate Engineering in Electronics through a college partnership between Pakistan’s Government College of Technology (GCT), Multan and UK’s City College Brighton and Hove.

The diploma has not only been approved by the provincial Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA) and rolled out across Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province – but is now also a recognised qualification in the country. The new curriculum will be taught in more than 138 TVET colleges across the province benefitting more than 15,000 students every year. About 700 teachers are being provided with the training to teach this new curriculum from the next academic year beginning this September.

Highlighting the special feature of this diploma, Imran Ashraf, Head of Electrical Department at GCT Multan and the link coordinator for the partnership with Brighton & Hove claimed, “For first time in the history of Pakistan, we have added specialisation in the Light Engineering section. Now every child will be a specialist with specific knowledge of a particular field”.

In a country where reforms in education are made on an ad hoc basis, that too driven by mainly political factors, making curriculum changes is by no means easy.

“It was a challenging task,” said Imran Ashraf telling us about the challenging three years it took to make the diploma a reality. “The unstable political and security situation in Pakistan, the lack of interest by the industry and education department were some of the major challenges.”

Even the nature wanted to test their commitment and patience. Pakistan faced one of the worst floods in history in 2010 affecting large parts of the country including the Punjab province, where GCT Multan is located. As a result, the government who promised a grant to the partnership for new equipment had to reset its priority.

“Priorities changed after the flood of course, rightfully so actually” said Imran “but it was definitely a big set back to the partnership.”

However all hope was not lost, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) impressed with the goals of the partnership, stepped in and donated Rs. 16 million (£120,000) to purchase equipment with an additional amount to be released soon. “The fact that organisations like UNIDO are helping us is a recognition of our work; it truly makes all the hard work worth it” said an emotional Imran.

During one of her visits to GCT Multan, Hillary Warmouth, Consultant at UNIDO termed this partnership as “the best [international] partnership” she has ever seen. She also termed it an “example for other projects and programmes” in Pakistan.

When the partnership first analysed the existing curriculum they found that only 40% matched with the UK curriculum, which was in line with the latest development in the technology and industry. But now as the curriculum is developed, both the curriculums are over 90% the same. The 10% difference is only because of the local environment and weather conditions, which cannot be avoided.

The partnership has already completed its 3-year term and has achieved all goals that had been set at its inception. In March, teachers from Brighton & Hove were finally able to come to Pakistan, where they not visited the college in Multan but also presented the achievements of the partnership to British High Commissioner to Pakistan as well as leading stakeholders in the technical and vocational training Sector.

However, both colleges do not think that partnership will be over. “Yes, the project is officially over, but our partnership will go a long way”, said Imran. “We have agreed to keep in touch, share information with each other and develop a Quality Assurance System for this 3-year diploma”, Imran said about their future plans about this partnership.

“This is encouraging and satisfying as we at British Council aim to develop sustainable partnerships that continue working on their own for a long time”, said Zahra Rizvi, Head of Skills for Employability programme in Pakistan as she sees the resolves of both the colleges.