The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The National Graduate Orientation Program this year will be held from 12th -19th August with the theme, “leadership of the self through integrity.”
Around 2727 graduates have registered for the program for now, but the figures are expected to fluctuate after verification of documents, which might culminate in the disqualification of some of the graduates. There has also been past records where some registered graduates do not turn up for the program.
Last year, a total of 2229 university graduates attended the program.
Unlike the previous years, the NGOP this year will exclude the attendance of in-service graduates. “The National Graduate Orientation Program is organized to provide policy orientation, cultural orientation and personal development opportunities to the fresh university graduates before they enter the labour market and provide briefing sessions by various ministries and organizations,” said an official from the Labour Ministry. “Since the in-service graduates are already aware of these values and are equipped with basic knowledge, we’ve decided to exclude them from the program.”
After receiving positive feedback from the graduates on the newly initiated daily food allowance of Nu. 200 per day last year, the same will be continued this year. “Serving lunches was one of the biggest challenges of the NGOP in the past. Cooking for more than 2000 graduates and meeting everyone’s expectation was difficult and complaints in the past were mostly in regard to meals,” said the official.
He added that due to this reason, even when the Ministry provided free lunches, the graduates weren’t satisfied and the budgets allocated for the meals were seen as wastage. “Therefore, the Ministry last year initiated to provide food allowance of Nu. 200 per day for graduates attending NGOP and the same will be continued this year.”
Although the agenda for the program has not been finalized yet, the program will be held at the Multi-Purpose Hall in Royal Institute of Management (RIM), Semtokha.
Of 2727 graduates who have registered for the program, 1462 graduates are from colleges within Bhutan and 1265 from graduates who’ve studied outside.
