Technology has experienced incredible growth over the past several decades and now drives most aspects of life. The role of Information Technology (IT), in particular, has become of the utmost importance. Whether it’s in business, education, healthcare, or government, it’s hard to imagine an aspect of modern infrastructure that isn’t IT-driven. In a developing country like Pakistan, where the tech industry has exploded and continues to grow, IT training institutes are central to growing the workforce. Below, we lay out some essential reasons why IT institutes are crucial for Pakistan.

A significant skill gap

Pakistan’s IT industry is a fast-growing industry and demands skilled professionals. However, there is a considerable gap between the requisite skills needed for the workforce in the industry and what the current workforce possesses. IT institutes are an essential industry bridge to fill this gap. They provide specialized courses in programming, cybersecurity, data science, etc., backed by social, educational, or professional experience; and they cultivate these skills to ensure that the student workforce will be able to fulfill industry requirements. This not only improves employability but ensures the workforce is capable of competing in the global market.

Youth-Based Outsourcing and Unemployment

With a youthful population, Pakistan has tremendous potential to bolster the situation of youth as it does for becoming a service-based economy for IT services; however, unemployment is still an issue. Retail restaurants, when they receive request letters from employment agencies, only see young employees and reflect the ability of students to gain employment in their respective industries. Having affordable and accessible education is advantageous in laying a pathway for youth to establish potentially lucrative careers in IT or tech-based industries. Furthermore, so many tech-training institutes partner with industry and provide their students internship placement opportunities through entry-based wages that could lead to full-time employment.

Entrepreneurship or innovation

The space (and even a modernized economy’s need) in Information Technology is a guideline ground to build a fresh career practice around innovation-accentuated entrepreneurship. With some level of training, young people can gain perspective from entrepreneurial courses offered in tech-training institutes, stimulating interest in creating their own startups within processes embedded in technology themselves. Many institutes will allocate students to develop both spectator and inventor situations while launching into the process itself; this is the nature of so many start-ups.