The government plans to provide free skill tests for returning migrant workers to prove the skills they have gained while working in foreign employment.
The Foreign Employment Board will be conduct tests aimed at migrant workers, who return home, who despite having special skills, are often scrambling for jobs upon returning home.
Spokesperson of the board, Din BandhuSubedi said-“Migrant workers return home with a certain set of skills but without certification, they end up jobless. The objective of skill tests is to validate and rate their occupational skills.”He added the tests are open to all migrant workers who are back home now.
Applications for the examination conducted by the National Skill Testing Board under the Technical Education and Vocational Training Council will be collected from all seven provinces before December 27.
One of the ways the government seeks to reverse the departure of Nepalese workers into Arab-Gulf countries and Malaysia is to provide skills verification where they work in an insecure working environment. Even after they come back with the skills, a lack of proper verification of their skills makes it difficult for them to find work in the country.
Subedi said-“When their skills are certified, they become trained and qualified human resources for the country. Once they have the certificate, they can easily apply for similar jobs here and earn decent money. This way, we can also retain migrant workers.”Last year a similar skill testing and certification program was organized in all provinces. However, the response was not encouraging.
According to Subedi, 584 youths had applied for the tests and fewer than 400 of them had actually taken the tests. Of those who took the tests, 126 passed and got their skill certificates.
The board has announced free skill training to unskilled and unemployed youths. According to plan the plan unveiled by the board in October, the training would be provided in 19 different areas by this month.
In order to retain returning migrant workers and create opportunities for them at home, the government recently made some important amendments to the policy, which proposed interest-subsidy loans to returnee migrant workers.
The lack of employment opportunities at home and the lack of financial resources have given the migrant workers a compulsory return foreign employment, a similar trend in which workers continue to move aboard. The government plans to stop spherical stem migration through policy changes.
Subedi said that policies are becoming flexible and helpful to assist migrant workers to start their own enterprises and get skills certified. There are now753 Labour Information Centre at all local levels. Their job is not merely collecting information but also generating jobs for unemployed youths locally.
Source: TKP
