Accreditation and Certification for TEVT Institutions in Nepal

1. INTRODUCTION

Nepal is a landlocked Himalayan Kingdom. Nepal possesses enormous ecological, cultural and ethnic diversity. It is wedged between two emerging global economic powers, China in the north and India in the east, west and south, with an open boarder, Nepal is said to be rich in bio-diversity possessing 2.3% of the world's hydro resources with broad variety of topography.

The population of Nepal as per the population census of 2001 is 23.2 million, females (50.05%) outnumbers males by a small margin only. The population growth rate is around 2.37% and 87 percent of the population live in the rural area. The country is divided into 3 parts ecologically: Mountains, Hill and Terai.

Nepal has made substantial progress in education in the past decades. The numbers of schools as well as students enrolment have increased. However, there is a wide difference in levels of schooling in different parts of the country. Only six percent of the people have passed the SLC or higher education in Sindhupalchowk district whereas in Kathmandu thirty seven percent of the population has passed the SLC or higher education. Difference in educational attainment also occurs between males and females. More than 75 % of the female population has never attended schooling. Around three percent of the female population has completed secondary level of education, only 0.6 percent has completed the higher secondary level of education and 0.4 percent of the female population has completed the degree level of education.

Access, quality, equity, efficiency and relevancy are the key issues and challenges in education sector. The quality of the school education is also necessary to assure equity. TEVT in Nepal originated from the establishment of the engineering and Ayurved schools in late 1930s. During 1960s, efforts were made to attach Vocational education to general education from grades six to ten. In 1971, the government introduced a major policy initiative called the Nation Education System Plan (NESP). This policy recommended vocational education to be provided in every secondary school in the country. In 1979, the national education committee introduced a technical schools work plan. The technical school scheme emphasized skill training and occupational preparation for school dropouts, school leavers, and non-college bound youth including the economically poor population who were unable to pursue higher education. A need to manage government technical school was realized also in 1980 with the establishment of a technical and vocational education committee. This was followed by the establishment of the directorate of the technical and vocational education (DTEVT), as a division of the ministry of education and sports.

The on going development of the TEVT sector resulted in a view that coordination and assistance to the sector was required. This lead to establish the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) in 1988 under the ministry of education and sports. CTEVT has a mandate to coordinate and assist the TEVT sector. Presently, technical education and vocational training providers in the kingdom of Nepal are CTEVT, government agencies, Universities, public schools and private institutions.


2. STATUS OF NATIONAL ACCREDITATION SYSTEM IN THE COUNTRY AND ITS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTION


There is an Accreditation Division under CTEVT for ensuring the quality of private technical institutions affiliated with CTEVT. The division is also responsible to provide equivalency of non-university technical and vocational training of other countries. But the division is not functional regarding the Accreditation. There does not exist the well-developed accreditation system in Nepal. CTEVT only provides the affiliation to the technical education and vocational training institutions in TEVT sector. The process of affiliation of the training providers is as follows:

	Notice publication inviting the proposal for establishing the training institution.
	Selection of the proposals based on developed criteria. (The criteria include proposed building, available land, proposed staff, proposed management committee, academic committee, proposed place for practical, financial status etc.)
	After selecting the proposals on the desk, feasibility study of the selected proposals is carried out. The team for the feasibility study includes the representatives from professional council, concerned ministries, universities and CTEVT.
	The proposed feasible institutions selected from the feasibility study are given the letter for the development of the infrastructures.
	After the specified period of the letter given, inspection of the minimum requirement is carried out. Well-developed criteria exist for evaluating the minimum criteria.
	CTEVT council approves the proposed programs and gives affiliation to the proposed institutions that meet the minimum requirements.

As stated earlier, there is no well-developed accreditation system for TEVT programs and institutions in Nepal. However, accreditation is needed for distinguishing reputable institutions from others, justified by possession of quality standards and continuous effort to maintain them at a high level. It also helps in transferring academic credits to other educational institutions, transferring students and faculty as well as faculty exchange and cooperation. Similarly, parents want that their children be placed in a worthy educational environment with the best practices. Employers also seek students passing out from reputable educational institutions who have the competence and skills for the world of work. Accreditation helps the educational institutions to know their strengths and weaknesses for continuous improvement. Accreditation can be one of the factors considered for possible financial assistance from the government and other incentives. This is the age of globalization. Therefore, the country wants its human resources competitive and qualitative. Well-developed accreditation system helps the nation to express its confidence in the suitability and the global competitiveness of its trained work force by the quality assurance of accredited/nationally recognized educational institutions. Therefore, a nationally recognized and independent accreditation board is urgently needed.


3. PRESSING PROBLEMS IN ACQUIRING INTERNATIONAL/REGIONAL ACCREDITATION AND CERTIFICATION


There are many problems in acquiring international or regional accreditation and certification of technical education and vocational training programs. The most pressing problems among them is lack of educational and training standards upon which TVE institutions will be analyze and evaluate their own functions and roles, both quantitatively and qualitatively, as they seek to improve the quality of their performance and impact. Lack of adequate coordination among the educational institutions is also another major problem that has created the problem in equivalency of the academic degree. The TVE institutions can be strengthened and encouraged to engage in research and innovations through the process of accreditation with accepted standards. Emerging new technology, fast advancing innovations in education and training, distance education technology, e learning and other flexible delivery schemes is bringing more challenges in TVE. Lack of any mechanisms for credit transfer or exportability and equivalency is also another burning issue. There is a gap to link TVE to higher education, skills certification and employment qualifications.


4. RECOMMENDATION IN RELATION TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ACCREDITATION AND CERTIFICATION BODY FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC REGION

	Devise a mechanism for credit transfer or exportability and equivalency.
	Develop educational and training standards to analyze and evaluate the TVE institutions.
	Improve communication mechanism among the training providers and institutions.
	Involve the industries, private sector and all stakeholders in developing quality standards for accreditation.