The labour ministry with the partner agencies will take an extra mile to develop Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programme in the country. Known as a dual training programme, it will start as a pilot programme from the mid of August, this year.
The programme will offer plenty of opportunity to the students of Technical Training Institutes and Institute of Zorig Chusum for on-the-job training for a thorough work experience.
The Technical Training Institutes (TTI) and Zorig Chusum programmes usually comprise of theory with only about three months of on-the-job training. The labour ministry, however, wants to reverse the trend. With this programme, the vocational school is expected to give theoretical knowledge that a person needs in future occupation for a few months. The rest of the time will be spent at a company.
“The dual training programme curriculum is in such a way that 70 per cent of the training programme will happen with the companies rather than the institute. At the moment, it’s institutional based so vis-a-vis when the product goes to the market, they keep on telling us saying that there is no quality or the required skill is not there,” Karma Dorji, Programme analyst at MOLHR, said.
He added that this will also help industry skills supervisors on the development of a training plan based on the curriculums, to develop a weekly plan and to assess the learners.
The partner agencies like Construction Development Corporation Limited (CDCL) also welcome the move.
“As a CDCL, we would like to welcome this programme because basically, it would benefit both the industry and as well as our job seekers. Firstly, part of the cost will be borne by the government and rest by the industry. This way the financial burden to the industry will be reduced and on the other hand, we will be getting the type of employee we want to recruit,” said Pema Wangchuk, Director for CDCL.
However, according to one of the instructors of Thimphu automobile mechanic TTI, she said she has a mixed opinion about the programme.
“It’s good on one hand because here we have all the dead vehicle and we have a very less budget to revive it. So if they do most of their practice in a workshop, it will be a good opportunity for them to practise. But on the other side, in the workshop, the procedure is not of standard practice. They do not practise the right tools for the right job. Here in the TTI, we teach everything, theory, safety, right tools for the right job,” Sonam Choden, Instructor, TTI, Thimphu, shared her doubts.
Today, the country has six Technical Training Institutes and two Institute of Zorig Chusum.
