Skilled overseas jobs:

NVQ certificate, a must from Sept 1

* Females as domestics out

* Ministry to provide training

Rasika SOMARATHNA

Obtaining National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) would be made compulsory for Sri Lankans seeking skilled jobs abroad, in future.

Foreign Employment Minister, Dilan Perera has said that aspiring migrant workers need to acquire NVQ certificate Level 3 qualifications or above, to prove their skill levels.

He has said that this would be made compulsory from September 1. Minister Perera said so when he met a group of migrant workers and Sri Lankan businessmen domiciled in Oman.

A delegation headed by the minister concluded an official visit to Oman last week. The minister said, the government would not encourage females migrating for jobs as domestic aides in future and added that instead it would give all the support for skilled workers who seek overseas jobs, Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment sources Said.

He has also said that his ministry would help Lankan job aspirants to achieve the desired qualifications by providing training and expert knowledge, before embarking on overseas jobs.

The NVQ certificate is not a training certificate. It is a document that certifies a person’s skills.

It is a nationally recognized certificate that confirms, that a person possess skills up to the respective NVQ level in that occupation. The NVQ System is a skill evaluation system and has a high tendency for a foreign employment.

Therefore, National Vocational Qualification System could be considered as nationally and internationally recognized vocational certification system, which is a unified one.

There are two routes to obtain NVQ certificates:

1. If the candidate could prove his/her ability with adequate evidence of his/her competencies pertaining to qualifications stipulated in the Skills Standards, then the candidate is eligible to receive NVQ certificate through RPL. This is known as Recognition of Prior Learning. 2. The other route of getting NVQ certificate is, by following a Competency Based Training (CBT) course relevant to the qualification which is accredited by the TVEC. The public Institution those conducting Competency Base Training courses are National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority, Vocational Training Authority, National Youth Service Council or at a Technical College of Department of Technical Education and Training. There are private and NGO sector institutions where their courses conducted are accredited to issue NVQ certificates.