President Dr Arif Alvi Wednesday called for adopting the international best practices to ensure that persons with disabilities (PWDs), have increased access to special skill sets that match market requirements. The president, chairing a meeting on vocational training for differently-abled persons, at Aiwan-e-Sadr, urged the public and the private sector to implement the 5% job quota for PWDs to ensure their financial inclusion and bring them into the mainstream of national development. Chairman of National Vocational and Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC) Syed Javed Hassan and senior government officials attended the meeting. Emphasising the need to financially empower the PWDs, the president said that the government departments, the private sector and non-governmental organizations needed to join hands to ensure the specific skills development of differently-abled people (DAPs). He asked NAVTTC to raise awareness about its skills development programmes to encourage the people, particularly DAPs, to apply more for special skills training. The president also advised the training institutions to establish linkages with national and international organizations of good repute to determine market requirements. Chairman NAVTTC Syed Javed Hassan briefed the meeting about the measures taken by his organization for the skill development of differently-abled people. He informed that NAVTTC had imparted special training to DAPs and so far 318 persons with disabilities had been given vocational training in different parts of the country. He highlighted that his organization was working to increase the access of DAPs to learning resources, besides facilitating them to acquire marketable skills and employment.
