Need of technology in Rural Nepal

Rural Nepal faces a severe technology deficit. While there are other serious shortages—power, water, health facilities, roads, etc.—these are widely recognized. However, the role of technology in addressing these and other challenges is barely acknowledged, and the actual availability of technology and training in rural areas remains, at best, marginal.

Science and technology are often spoken of together. Technology generally derives from science and often manifests itself in physical form—for example, as hardware. Science, on the other hand, is knowledge. In rural Nepal, there is a shortage of both.

To address this challenge, training institutions are needed to help rural youth acquire the requisite skills for gainful employment and to benefit from economic growth. The foundation should provide training to rural youth and connect them with potential employers.

These should be short-duration, market-oriented skills training programs for local youth. After completing training, aspirants should be assisted in obtaining jobs in nearby cities or towns. Training areas could include customer relations and sales, hospitality, IT-enabled services, automobile mechanics, goods servicing and repair, security, mobile and electronics servicing, and printing and publishing.

Interestingly, villages near towns and industrial areas have a large number of youth with a fair level of school education. However, as these young people lack employable skills, they tend to remain idle or underemployed—working in unskilled, low-paying jobs or being underutilized in agriculture.

This has created a gap between the demand and supply of skilled human resources in and around small towns and industrial areas. There is an immediate need for institutions and training centers that can provide effective programs to bridge this gap and transform educated but underemployed youth into skilled or semi-skilled workers, thereby adding value both to their lives and to the local and national economy.

Such institutions can contribute positively to the legitimate aspirations of rural people to benefit from urbanization and industrialization, and help them develop the right skills and mindset to engage productively in the growing local economy.

Our focus should be on producing skilled manpower from local areas to meet the growing aspirations of rural youth who seek employment but lack employable skills.

To accomplish this, effective coordination among researchers, educators, and technology experts is urgently required to demonstrate proven technologies that yield higher returns on investment.