Mayor of Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City Shivaraj Subedi has said that enhancing the quality as well as governmental accreditation of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) coupled with appropriate policy intervention would be crucial in helping Nepal in its quest to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

"We have identified tourism, agro-industries and businesses as the basis for a prosperous Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City, and Rupandehi district as a whole," Mayor Subedi said, adding that although the region has yet to reap tourism dividends, "we believe our future lies in tourism and developing niche agriculture industries and businesses that are tourism-friendly."

Mayor Subedi, who was speaking at a program organized by the high-level taskforce of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in Butwal, argued that this is why the local government of Butwal, with the help of federal and provincial government, needs to enhance both the quality and accessibility of TVET to produce skilled workforce along with necessary tourism infrastructures to cater to Butwal's unique development needs.

The taskforce of the Education Ministry is organizing such programmes nationwide with the facilitation of UNDP Nepal's Support to Knowledge and Lifelong Learning Skills (SKILLS) Programme to solicit suggestions from concerned stakeholders on how to structure and design a comprehensive national TVET policy that can contribute to a sustainable development of the country.

Also speaking at the programme, Dr Pramod Bahadur Shrestha, coordinator of the taskforce, said that no nation can achieve the kind of economic prosperity it wants without first developing its skilled human resources.

"Therefore, we have to develop well-equipped technical and vocational institutions to produce such skilled workforce," Dr Shrestha said. He added that Nepalese society must adjacently cultivate a culture of respecting all kinds of skills and labour to promote socio-economic transformation.

The programme saw the participation of more than 40 local ward chairpersons of Butwal municipality, government officials, principals and teachers of technical and vocational institutions in Butwal, private training providers, among others. Arvinda Kumar Chaudhary, chief of the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT)-affiliated Korea-Nepal Institute of Technology, suggested that rather than providing technical and vocational trainings through various agencies as is being done at present, they should be provided by a single entity through a one-door system to avoid mismatch and confusion and increase the effectiveness of such trainings.

Ward chairpersons participating in the meeting said that all technical and vocational trainings provided locally should be duly linked up with the local job market to ensure the employability of the skilled workforce thus produced and contribute to the development of the place.

The programme also saw the participation of CTEVT Director Deepak Poudel, Deputy Mayor of Butwal Goma Acharya and Chief of Education Development and Coordination Unit of Rupandehi district Diwarkar Bhandari.