The government is planning to conduct skill-based training in coordination with the private sector for migrant workers with an aim to improve their skills.

The secretariat of the Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB), under the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security (MoLESS), has already selected 15 firms to provide support in conducting such training programmes for over 15,000 individuals in fiscal year 2019-20.

Rajan Shrestha, executive director of FEPB, mentioned that the board will provide free vocational skill development training to 10,000 potential migrant workers over the next three months and the remaining 5,000 will be given the training by the end of the current fiscal.

The FEPB has said it will provide training under 19 different categories for foreign job aspirants.

As per Shrestha, the board has been conducting training programmes under various topics for the last 10 years.

Over 30,000 youths have received training over this period and a total of Rs four billion has been invested in these training programmes so far.

For the current fiscal year, the government has allocated Rs 2.5 million to provide training to 15,000 youths and preparatory works for the training will soon be completed.

The free vocational skill development training for youths will be provided by the Safer Migration Project (SaMi) of Helvetas and FEPB jointly.

The government had inked a memorandum of understanding to implement the project with Helvetas in December 2015. Based on the learnings and experiences of the previous years, both parties have agreed to continue with this initiative on mutual understanding.

According to Shrestha, the training will be free of cost and the board is currently holding discussions on technical and vocational aspects of project implementation.

“We are working in close coordination with private skill providing institutions and the process to enlist those with sufficient infrastructure is under way,” he added.

In fiscal year 2018-19, a total of 285,445 unskilled Nepali youths left Nepal for foreign employment. Only 179,601 skilled youths left for foreign employment, according to the record maintained by the Department of Foreign Employment in the last fiscal.

“As per our data, the skilled youths are receiving better salary and benefits as compared to the unskilled migrants.

So, we would suggest foreign job aspirants to take skill-based training before departing the country for foreign employment,” Shrestha said.

Published on: 24 November 2019 | The Himalayan Times