18 Chait, Kathmandu. The government is going to conduct the orientation training given to the workers going for foreign employment before going abroad.

Since the training is being conducted by certain organizations, the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security has advanced the process by conducting it online.

Since 2060, pre-departure orientation training has been conducted for workers going to foreign employment through certain organizations.

At present, 153 organizations listed in the Foreign Employment Department have been providing orientation training. In the case of workers who go through the government, orientation training is being conducted through the National Vocational Training Institute located in Bhainsepati.

In cases other than those, the orientation is being done through the organization providing the orientation training. The Ministry of Labor is going to make arrangements for creating audio-visual content based on the curriculum and making it available on digital media.

The Ministry of Labor plans to make Pre-Departure Orientation Training (PDOT) completely online based.

After the plan of the government, the future of 153 institutions listed to provide training is seen to be in crisis. Those organizations have been providing training by meeting the standards of the Foreign Employment Act 2064 and Orientation Training Operation Procedure 2076.

For that, they charge Rs 2,100 per trainee. The foreign employment department has warned that the fee is only 700 and if it is found that more than that, the permit will be revoked.

According to the list of 100 tasks to be done in 100 days put forward by the current government, the Ministry of Labor has started the homework of completely digitizing the orientation training.

Labor Minister Deepak Kumar Sah said that the orientation training is going to be conducted entirely through digital means. According to Minister Sah, videos based on the curriculum will be made and put online and the workers will learn based on that.

“Based on the curriculum, we will make a 15/16 hour video, according to the video, we will arrange to watch the video according to the country you are going to,” he said.

According to him, the ministry has taken up the homework by making arrangements for studying online and not taking even a single penny from the workers.

According to the ministry, the orientation training that is currently being provided will be done through the organization and after the preparation is completed, it will be arranged to take the training online. According to the ministry, necessary instructions have been given to the Foreign Employment Board.

After the government’s homework, the training providers are worried. Rajaram Gautam, president of the Federation of Foreign Employment Orientation Professionals, said that the state should answer the question of what will happen to the institutions established on a legal basis.

“Now the law doesn’t need anything in this country, we have been sent a paper saying that we have invested so much even yesterday,” he asked. What is the government’s strategy? What is the condition of businessmen? What is the situation? It should be seen like this.’

He alleges that the government is going to destroy the sector, which is currently providing employment to around 1,000 to 1,200 and has an investment of crores.

“Now 1,000 to 1,200 people work in this sector, one organization has invested 15 to 30 million, 5/5 million has been secured,” Gautam said, “The government had to give us an option, otherwise the constitution says to guarantee employment under fundamental rights, what is the guarantee of our employment?” What is the guarantee of our investment?’

He asked what will happen to the employment of thousands of people and the future of businessmen and their dependent families.

Stating that this sector has been unstable since its inception, he said that the government has recently invested crores of rupees on the same basis.

“Recently, there has been a lot of investment, we have made the standards according to the government by investing loans,” he said.

The then Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Security Sharatsingh Bhandari revised the ‘Orientation Training Operation Procedure 2076’ from 700 to 2 thousand 100 rupees at once, in addition to that, an additional 700 was specified as language study and certificate examination fees.

According to this increased fee, it was arranged that a three-day orientation training should be given and at the end, language study and certificate examination should be taken.

According to the procedure, the orientation training provider organization used to charge only 2 thousand 100. However, the orientation was conducted only for two days, that too according to the old syllabus.

A dispute arose after the fee was increased. After that, the department issued a statement on 13 October 2081 and made it clear that the training fee was 700.

In 2075, a high-level foreign employment reform task force was formed under the coordination of the then Secretary Purnachandra Bhattarai. The task force pointed out that the trend of giving certificates without providing training has increased.

The report pointed out the reasons behind the ineffectiveness of the training, such as the lack of suitable teaching materials, lack of honesty in training providers, ineffective monitoring of training institutions, failure to develop a system to evaluate learning after training, and failure to develop a practice of providing training from employers and missions after reaching the destination country.

Based on the same report, on 8 February 2076, the Ministry of Labor revised and amended the foreign employment education orientation training course.

After that, on 7 October 2080, the course duration was increased for the second time from 10 hours (2 days) to 18 hours (3 days). The training courses provided to the workers before their departure abroad were classified and grouped according to the nature of the destination country.

Now, the government has started the homework of doing the training provided through the organization completely free online.