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 known and recognized. However, the role of technology in solving these and other problems is but barely acknowledged, and the actual availability of technology and training in rural areas is, at best, marginal.

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

To address this challenge, there is need of training institutions to help youth in rural areas acquire the requisite skills for obtaining gainful employment and reaping the benefits of economic growth. The foundation should provide training to rural youth and links them with potential employers.

These should be short duration market-oriented skills training for local youths. After undergoing training, the aspirants should be assisted in obtaining jobs in cities or towns close to centers. These training can be – customer relations and Sales, Hospitality, IT-enabled services, automobile mechanism, good servicing and repair and security, servicing of mobiles and other electronic goods, printing and publishing.

Interestingly, villages in the vicinity of 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 be idle or underemployed – doing unskilled jobs at low wages or being underutilized in agricultural activities.

Thus, there is a gap in the demand and supply of skilled human resources in and around small towns and industrial areas. There is an immediate need of institutions and training centers which can provide an effective programme to fill the gap and initiate the transformation of educated and underemployed youth into skilled/semi-skilled workers, thus adding value to their lives as well to the local and national economy.

These institutions can make a positive contribution to the legitimate aspirations of rural people to benefit from urbanization and industrialization, and help them develop the right attitude and skills to employ themselves in many spheres of the growing local economy.

Our focus should be to produce skilled manpower from local areas and to meet to the growing aspirations of the local youth who desire jobs though they have few employable skills.

To accomplish this there is an immediate need for effective coordination among Researchers, Educationalists & Techies to demonstrate proven technology that can yield higher returns on investments. We look forward to your support and partnership in this transformational program.