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Whither are they headed?

5 February 2010

 

 Hundreds of 2009 class XII graduates, who don’t qualify for higher studies, are joining the job market that is already saturated with thousands of jobseekers. Sonam Pelden explores the employment scenario for the high school dropouts.

The 2009 class XII ex­ams pass percentage of 87.35 sounds hope­ful but out of 6,540 students, only 1,491 or about 22.7 per­cent of the students will make it to the 11 colleges under the Royal University of Bhutan. Some will qualify for scholar­ships abroad. What about the rest?

There are 161 undergradu­ate scholarship slots. The se­nior programme officer at the scholarship division of the De­partment of Adult and Higher Education, Tashi Dawa, said that the education ministry might sponsor a few students in private colleges in the country if they don’t qualify for ex-country scholarships.

The Royal Thimphu Col­lege will absorb a few, a few might repeat, and a few oth­ers will go abroad to study but the majority will be seek­ing jobs, which are hard to come by.

Phub Lhamo from a private school in Thimphu secured an aggregate of 60 percent. She doubts, though, if she will get through to a college with that score. “I have a slim chance to qualify for B. Ed course but teaching isn’t my job preference,” she said. She hopes that her parents would send her to India for further studies.

The labour market survey of 2009 showed the unem­ployment rate at four percent with 12,900 unemployed people, 2,000 registered job­seekers and only 1,000 job vacancies. There were 26,273 foreign workers in the coun­try last year.

While jobs continue to be hard to find, some jobseekers believe that there are ample opportunities, meaning that the government should ex­plore ways to employ them and that companies have to become more flexible in re­cruitment procedures.

However, Wangchuk, a civil servant, said that young people today shouldn’t be ful­ly dependent on the govern­ment. “Selling hotdogs and ice creams are options worth exploring,” he said, adding that Bhutanese should learn to be more creative and be more open-minded.

While some have applied for jobs, many are loitering on the streets of Thimphu. Private firms in the town al­ready have students applying for jobs. Some proprietors told Observer that they don’t have a vacancy and don’t see one coming in a long time.

However, some big firms are optimistic about getting some students employed, even if temporarily. “I have a project coming up, and I will need quite a lot of youngsters to carry out the survey. It will require a lot of legwork,” said an owner of a private firm.

The Department of Labour, from coming August, will in­troduce a new training mod­ule for the vocational training institutes (VTI) to help VTI graduates find jobs and ease the country’s unemployment pressure. The department aims to create around 50,000 jobs through VTIs, mostly in the construction, ICT, agricul­ture, tourism and hospitality sectors. The pilot project will be launched in five fields of electrical, welding, plumb­ing, automobile and gold­smithery.

By August, the VTIs and Zorig Chusum school will take in 1,250 students (en­try level will be class X and above), according to the Chief Programme Officer of the De­partment of Human Resource, Sangay Dorji. He said there will be multiple entries and exits in a year depending on the capacity of the institutes. Entries for agriculture, tour­ism and hospitality sectors will be on a private-govern­ment partnership basis.

A big chunk of the class XII students will be absorbed by  vocational training course but some will still remain jobless.

Tenzin from Motithnag Higher Secondary School in Thimphu doesn’t qualify for any of the colleges in Bhutan. Her future remains unknown. Her parents cannot afford to send her outside the country for studies. “I am thinking of reappearing for exams next year,” she said.

A worried mother in Thim­phu has already applied for a loan to send her son to com­plete his education in India. “If you don’t hold a degree certificate, you are nothing today” she believes.

Meanwhile, the Depart­ment of Employment is op­timistic about absorbing be­tween 60 and 70 percent of class X and XII dropouts this year in different courses and trainings. The Director said the department is trying to create many programmes for the students based on the McKinsey recommendations.

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