Kathmandu, December 4

The Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB) is gearing up to provide free technical education to children of Nepali migrant who lose their lives, faces severe injuries or suffer from chronic diseases while working abroad.

For the first time, FEPB is mulling over offering such facilities to children of Nepali migrant workers in view of supporting the families of migrant workers that pass away or suffer severe injuries or illnesses.

Under this programme, which FEPB plans to implement from the beginning of March, beneficiary children of migrant workers will be offered free technical education in the field of civil engineering, nursing and agriculture.

FEPB has allocated altogether 320 quotas for these subjects for the ongoing fiscal year. While FEPB has allocated 120 quotas for three-year diploma course in any of the aforementioned subjects, 200 quotas have been separated for one-year vocational training on any of the aforementioned subjects.

The one-year vocational training, especially in the field of agriculture, targets those children of affected migrant workers who can read and write. The three-year diploma course, on the other hand, targets children of migrant workers who have cleared School Leaving Certificate (SLC) or education equivalent to this.

Under this programme to support families of affected migrant workers, FEPB will bear all the cost of beneficiary children of migrant workers taking the aforementioned courses. This includes course fee, uniform, rent and travel costs.

As per FEPB officials, all the beneficiary children will have to take these courses from the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT). Last week, FEPB and CTEVT signed an agreement to implement the programme in the country at the earliest.

Raguraj Kafle, executive director of FEPB, informed that such programme is necessary to support families of migrant workers who had an accident or suffer from chronic diseases. “This programme intends to help families of migrant workers to develop the skills of the children and generate livelihood opportunities,” said Kafle.

As per Kafle, a number of migrant workers have had workplace accidents in foreign land in the recent years. FEPB statistics shows that more than 6,000 Nepali migrant workers met with accidents since 2010 that either killed them or somehow affected them physically.

Meanwhile, the government has recently more than doubled compensation amount given to the next of kin of migrant workers who pass away, suffer serious injuries or become critically ill while working abroad to Rs 700,000 from Rs 300,000 earlier.