Kathmandu, August 11:

The Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) today completed the process of content analysis of the technical courses provided by Council of Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) in order to equate the proficiency certificate level (PCL) with those of the higher secondary education board. With this provision, students in vocational courses will get an opportunity to enroll in Bachelor’s level in the concerned subjects.

Subject experts from Kathmandu University, CTEVT, Higher Secondary Education Board (HSEB) and Institute of Medicine (IOM) TUTH met today to analyse the content of the CTEVT course.

Laba Prasad Tripathee, joint secretary to the Education Ministry told this daily that CTEVT would send the content analysis report to the Higher Secondary Education Board for endorsement.

The students must get at least an aggregate of 50 per cent in three major subjects such as Physics, Biology and Chemistry to get through the entrance examination held by various universities at the Bachelor level.

After discussion with experts, the content analysis report will be forwarded to the Cabinet for its approval on equating the CTEVT courses with those of PCL of TU, said Tripathee.

The government can only ask all the universities to adopt the cabinet decision, said Tripathee, adding: “We have expedited the process so that students don’t have to suffer.”

Nursing, agriculture, pharmacy, ophthalmic assistant, health assistant and laboratory technician course students had taken to the streets in the third week of July to demand that the PCL students of CTEVT be allowed to enroll in the Bachelor level courses in universities. Their other demands include providing weightage to the CTEVT degree equal to that of degrees from Tribhuvan University.

Meena Aryal, vice-president of the Valley Joint Nursing Struggle Committee said the students would form a monitoring committee to monitor that the government sticks to its commitment.

The government and the student organisations had agreed upon the former making special provisions to let students appear for the Bachelor level exams in various universities.

A detailed report submitted on July 31 by a study team headed by Tripathee clearly stated that the students’ demands were genuine and that the government would take necessary action to fulfill their demands. Until 1999, CTEVT graduates used to enroll in Tribhuvan

University for higher education. TU quashed the provision after that.