International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues ISSN: 2146-4138 available at http: www.econjournals.com International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 2020, 10(3), 149-157. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues | Vol 10 • Issue 3 • 2020 149 Analysis of the Determinants of Participation, Strengths and Weaknesses of Vocational Trainings of Federally Administered Tribal Area’s Development Authority Sami Ullah*, Zilakat K. Malik Department of Economics, University of Peshawar, Pakistan. *Email: sami00212@yahoo.com Received: 12 March 2020 Accepted: 25 April 2020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijef.9779 ABSTRACT Modern economist emphasized human capital formation for socio-economic development. Human capital theory considered education and training essential tools for human capital formation. This study was conducted to analyze what factors determines participation rate of youth in vocational trainings of Federally Administered Tribal Area’s Development Authority. Study also focused strengths and weaknesses of the trainings delivered. Data was collected on well-structured questioners from 400 respondents selected through disproportionate simple random sampling. The results revealed that age, marital status, father education, father profession, family size, family income and employment status before participation have signifcant efect on participation rate. Short duration, poor linkages with industries, lack of tool kits, career counseling, internship facility and post training fnancial support were recorded potential issues that challenged the achievement of anticipated outcomes of the program. Keywords: Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Vocational Training, Human Capital, Technical and Vocational Education and Training, Determinants JEL Classifcations: I21, J24 1. INTRODUCTION Modern economists emphasize a lot on investment in human capital consider as a pathway for socio-economic development of individuals and nations. Due to its keen importance; human capital development remained a considerable subject in various well known conventions and international conferences (Nafukho and Bunyi, 2013). Both technical education and vocational skills training are the key contributors to human capital development across the globe. Human knowledge and skills is the engine for social and economic development of nations (Goel, 2010). Vocational skills training means the acquisition of practical skills related to diferent occupation i.e. engineering, construction, agriculture, carpentry, dress making, automobile and electronic etc. Skills development has been the national development strategy for many countries. It increases the efficiency and productivity of workers, employability and self-employment. It makes the labor market entry convenient, make it easy for youth to attain employable skills and increase monthly earnings. It makes individual to earn them without looking to white collar jobs in government or in private sector. The reality of more than 95% employment of youth in Germany and Poland is due to its skilled worker. Asian tigers i.e. Thailand, Malaysia, North Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong etc. saw the face of rapid development and industrialization due to its keen focus on human capital development. Despite economic and labor market outcomes, development of vocational skills also breeds a lot of social benefts. Labour market has become more specialized and demand high order technical and vocational skills. Governments, National and International organizations are intensively investing in vocational and technical skills trainings (Ullah et al., 2017). This Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License