The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Sangay Dorji, Chukha’s Member of Parlaiment (MP), National Council questioned the Labor Minister on the main features of theTechnical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) reform initiative that will help to address the employment issue and when they are going to launch the reforms.
Responding to MP Sangay Dorji, Ugyen Dorji, Minister of Labor and Human Resources Ministry said that they are finalizing TVET reform plans for now and within this month the ministry would submit it to the government.
“According to the directives from the government, we will go ahead with rolling out the reform initiatives and we expect this reform initiative to be completed by 2023, before we leave the government,” Lyonpo added.
MP Sangay Dorji said that one of the root causes of youth unemployment is the lack of skills among job seekers to match the jobs available in the job market. Therefore, a robust and dynamic TVET Institution is important to build the skills required in the rapidly evolving labour market.
“Although the TVET has been in existence since the mid 1960s, there is a general consensus that TVET institutions have not been able to meet the expectation in terms of quantity as well as the quality and relevance of the training programmes,” he added.
The government initiated the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) reform in 2019. It’s been three months that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has returned the TVET program to the ministry. PMO took over the TVET program from the ministry when it was instituted.
Lyonpo said that the main objective of the reform is to encourage unemployed youths to take up the TVET training programs whereby they wish to see them having the potential in taking up the jobs they are trained in, at aninternational level.
To fulfill their aims he said that there are four pillars to the TVET reform, product transformation, place transformation, people transformation and process transformation.
Lyonpo said, “In product transformation they would diversify and design curriculum and programs to improve the standard. We would make the infrastructure more appealing and would make IT digital enabled facility. This would encourage people to come and learn in the campus.”
In addition, he also said that they would need competent people who were trained outside in those TVET programs. Therefore, they would call master trainers from outside to teach and in due course capacity development would take place whereby they would be able to manage the TVET institutes and also teach by themselves.
Meanwhile, he said that the link between the industries and TVET is very weak and there is no link between the country’s TVET system and the international institutes. So, they would try to collaborate and make the linkages between those institutes, he added.
