Kathmandu:Thousands of students who fail in the SLC exam have no other option but to take up menial labour as the government has failed to help them acquire livelihood skills, education experts say.

Technical skills, which can lift families out of poverty, is not getting the attention it deserves and the country’s human resources is going to waste, they said.

“Students who have lost interest in academics should be able to acquire job-oriented skills after grade eight. This can help them become self-reliant,” said educationist Bidhya Nath Koirala.

“However, technical education is getting little priority compared to technical general education although it has the capability of helping the poor get out of the vicious cycle of poverty,” added Koirala.

A large population in Nepal is in need of technical education. For instance, during this year’s SLC, 145,640 examinees could not pass even in chance exams.

However, colleges affiliated with the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training only has 500 seats available.

There are other experts who say the fault lies in the school curricula. They stress on the need to include vocational education in school curricula.

“The education system needs to address the interests of students who want to pursue a non-academic career,” remarked technical education expert Tanka Sharma.

“The schools should be proactive in providing the option of technical education,” said Sharma.

“We should incorporate technical education from grade nine. We should keep the doors open for dropouts from grade 5 and 8,” Sharma suggested.

Sharma’s suggestions appear to be far-fetched as challenges in the sector are a plenty.

Efforts from the governmental and non-governmental agencies lack coordination and questions have been raised about how INGOs are spending on technical education promotion programmes. “There should be a one-door funding policy,” Sharma remarked.

Meanwhile, the Technical Education and Vocational Training policy document, which was prepared in 2007, is yet to be implemented. Amid this, the Ministry of Education launched a technical programme on its own bypassing CTEVT.

source: The Himalayan Times, 9 October 2011