Experts on Wednesday emphasised that Nepal should focus on a permeable educational system, a practical-oriented education system that enables students to develop individual skills through training which would help them enter national and international labour markets for better earnings.

The system prepares apprentices who have received a first vocational diploma to go on to higher education at a university of applied sciences.

A day-long seminar organised by the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT), in collaboration with the Ministry of Education Science and Technology, outlined the importance of improving Nepal’s education system to make it dynamic and useful globally.

Professor Ursula Renolds, chair of the education system at ETH Zurich, a public research university in Switzerland, said in terms of designing the education frameworks on paper, Nepal is the rockstar, and it is way ahead of other countries.

She presented her study about the performance of Switzerland and other European countries in increasing enrolment rates for graduates.

“We need a permeable educational system to ensure equality and allow all youth to be a part of the labour force,” she said.

“Nepal and Switzerland are countries with small and medium enterprises. So, our industry needs more people with specialised practical and soft skills,” she said. “Professional education and training protect people from unemployment.”

Full permeability ensures that people from all levels of formal, informal, and non-formal education can move up to higher education and training.

She emphasised the need to improve technical and vocational education to achieve the goal of national prosperity by focusing on returnee migrants and youths.

Anoj Bhattarai, director of the curriculum and equivalence division at the CTEVT, said efforts are being made to implement a credit accumulation and transfer (CAT) system in the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) sector in Nepal.

This system involves completing a National Technical Certificate in two years, with an additional year, leading to a National Diploma.

Students receive module certificates with defined credits, allowing them to enter the job market and return to TVET schools for further education at any time.

“We need to develop a credit transfer system in various universities and accreditation of degrees from TVET institutions to make them attractive to employers. It will also help measure the quality of the degrees of our national institutions,” said Shree Prasad Bhattarai, joint secretary at the education ministry.

The event attended by representatives of the Nepal Nursing Council, the Nepal Education Council, and the private sector was aimed at advancing discussions among industry experts and education sector professionals to share knowledge about international experiences to improve employability for returnee migrants and Nepali youths.