Kathmandu, June 8

The two-day Korean Language Test (KLT) conducted by the Employment Permit System (EPS) of South Korea for Nepali job aspirants began from today.

The EPS Korea Section under the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) informed that altogether 92,356 job aspirants across the country are expected to participate in the test this year. They had submitted the KLT online application at EPS Korea Section in April. Meanwhile, 63,487 aspirants have applied for jobs in the production sector and 28,889 in the agriculture sector.

Sovakhar Bhandari, officer at EPS section, informed that the government has made arrangements to conduct the exams through 32 centres, including 21 in Kathmandu, seven in Lalitpur and four in Pokhara.

As per DoFE, the examinations are being conducted in two shifts, with the first shift beginning at 8:00 am and the second shift at 11:30 am.

He further informed that 70 fake examinees were arrested on the first day. While 46,196 aspirants were scheduled to take the exams today, 4,037 were absent.

Meanwhile, the South Korean government, which has been taking Nepali workers on the basis of their KLT result, has mentioned that job aspirants from now on must also possess required work skills.

This means that along with clearing the KLT, job aspirants should also have sound skills to be eligible to work in South Korea.

The ceiling set by South Korea for Nepali workers this year is 10,050. As per Bhandari, 3,000 Nepali workers will go to Korea in the agriculture sector and 7,050 workers in the manufacturing and production sectors.

In 2018, a total of 82,264 applicants had registered for the language test. Similarly, 68,383 people had applied for the test in 2017 and 60,626 in 2016.