Category: CDN Activities

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Career Disha Nepal conducted career counseling orientation for the SEE (Secondary Education Examination) students from different schools at Edulift, Ramhiti-Phulwari, Kathmandu.

CDN’s senior career counselor, Hari Krishna Dahal, and Namaraj KC ran the one-day interactive orientation session which included several career related activities; group discussion, career focused games, Ice Breakers, and The Mirror Game in order to enlighten the students to choose the deliberate and fitting career. According to the students’ feedback, the orientation session was interactive, refreshing, friendly and above all reflective.

Edulift http://www.eduliftacademy.org/ is a non-profit educational initiative dedicated to transforming and empowering the lives of young people and children from marginalized Himalayan and Tibetan ethnic groups. Edulift is giving Tibetan students to experiential-based education and life-skills session to prepare young people to live a purposeful life.

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Knowing the ground reality of the labour market is essential to provide quality career guidance for us. For that sake we have conducted a pilot field research in Jumla which had two aim:

Firstly, to gather more data about the potential of Jumla’s labour market now and in future. Secondly we wanted to test our core service: the interest based psychometric assessment in the setting of Jumla and assess the feasibility to work with local partner organizations.

For that Purpose Inge Patsch and Sagar Ghimire have been traveling from 5.3.2017 till 13.3.2017 to Jumla. Sushil Devkota from RACE Nepal was our local contact point and helped us arrange various meetings as well as the workshops in the schools. We furthermore could use their local office as a workplace.

The format for assessing the labour market seems to work well. Further similar research should be conducted in other districts of Nepal got get a more refined picture of the labour market. In most interviews with government officials, they first would start to tell us the number of governmental employees. While training enumerators we should emphasize therefor that they dedicatedly ask their interview partner for employment in public and private sector.

In terms of data collection we could conclude, that the current format serves well to assess the demand in the labour market for most sectors. For further interviews we can note that especially for interviewing governmental officials it is useful to bring an official letter (partnership with ILO?) to access them as some of them were hesitant sharing their insights with them (we did NOT ask them any personalized data though).

Also this requires sufficient time in the field as it might take several days to get the appointment with the right person. It is important to report those officials who have been working in the district for a longer period, as most information were drawn from their memory rather than official documets.

The watchadoo videos were rather easy to produce as long as one does not strive for perfect video or audio. While the footage made outside was having an nice picture, it was a challenge to get the clear sound (even though we used an audio-device directly next to the person to record it. The inside video has the challenge of the worse lightening. People were spontaneously able to give the interview and we did all of them in a one shot. For some we repeated single questions in a second shot.

The logistic of doing the workshops and taking the assessment in such remote areas is a challenge but doable. It requires sufficient time for processing. Assessments and Job & Edu Booklets are best prepared beforehand so to not have to rely on the online job & edu DB in the field.

A bigger challenge would be to find and to keep connected with local partners. We left the field without any specific agreements on any further cooperation. CDN would need to develop a clear concept on how local partners can overcome technical hurdles to use our system as well as how to train and prepare them. Last but not least we need to find organizations which dedicately are involved in career counselling and youth guidance and figure out which other tools they would need that the online assessment becomes a feasible instrument for their works. The development of a business case which works for CDN as well as for the local partners seems one important big next step.

Download full report

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Career Disha Nepal conducted Online Assessment to SEE (Secondary Education Examination) students in Kings College in collaboration with Glocal Nepal.

The program was Organized by Glocal Nepal named 'Glocal After School', where the program coordinator was Maulik Shakya. 22 students attended that program who came from different schools across Kathmandu valley. Since they all are waiting for their SEE  result, few students notified us that they were involved in bridge courses for their higher education.

The students were initially unaware of their expectations, as not much information was provided to them about career counseling. However, they caught up quite well, asking questions regarding the assessment system of Career Disha Nepal and making sure that their questions were heard. They were critical about the assessment and were careful about their choices during the assessment. Few of the students took longer than others as one student implied she had never thought of those specific questions and would need more time to reflect. Without a shadow of doubt, it was a good sign for us.

Students who got the results instantaneously could reflect upon their personality and question their choices. Some students who were so certain that they wanted to take IT as their career reflected - they might afterall reconsider their stance according to their personality.

All in all, it was a successful visit to introduce career counseling to the youth who recently completed nation’s first SEE examination.

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Career Disha Nepal officially handed over the 49 Psychometric Assessment results to Ishwor Chaulagain, the principal of Phatakshila Higher Secondary School, Sindhupalchowk. The personal assessment results recommend every individual with a list of possible career option with detail information of what education they should choose, how fitting are they with each job according to their personality and professional orientation.

To describe detail information of individual result to the students, CDN’s career counselor Hari Krishna Dahal had given the Result Interpreter Training to the principal and provided counseling materials, CDN Education Flex and CDN Green Booklet.

Mr. Chaulagain added “This Career counseling approach for guiding students to choose the suitable career according to their interest, strength, and values can be very effective and applicable. I will use this approach to future students as well.”

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Career Disha Nepal conducted customize package including Online Assessment, Career Crash Course Workshop, Life Coaching Workshop, Competence Workshops, Career Internship or Field Visit, Education Pathway Workshop and Peer Counseling Session to SEE (Secondary Education Examination) appeared students at Forum for the Welfare of Himalayan Children, Bungmati, Lalitpur.

These seven days interpersonal workshop, included different activities, interview, games, group work, discussion, an assessment aimed to help students to find out their interest, abilities and potential career. Online assessment recommends students’ personality detail and suitable career. One day career crash course help students to find out their interest, strength, and values.  Similarly, Competence Assessment analyses students competency and get recommended suitable job according to their core competencies.

This student-friendly whole workshop scheduled different date and time and assisted by CDN Career Counselor Hari Krishna Dahal and Namaraj KC.

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Career Disha Nepal has the objective to provide the services equally in urban as well as rural areas’ youths and increase CDN’s network to run our services in the rural areas of Nepal. Concerning our objectives, CDN team members, Technical Director Inge Patsch and Project Manager Sagar Ghimire travelled to Jumla on the 4^th of March till the 14^th of March. It was first labor market research in the Mid-Western Region (rural).

 The initial objectives of the field visit were

• to test the assessment and labour market workshop in a remote region.
• to test the validity of CDN’s services through the indecision scale.
• to run a pilot project related the labour market, data collection and testing the format.
• to create job videos- Whatchado.
• to identify local partners for career counselling in future.
• to coordinate district Data Collection via local partners.

The summary of the field report according to the technical director and the project manager is as follows:

During the 10 days field trip, we did personality based assessment for over 70 students including labor market workshops, individual career counseling. We also included the indecision scale before and after the assessment to assess students’ level of confusion. It was a general observation that the students were quite open to answering questions and took comparatively longer time to fill the assessment. However, due to the short time-frame we could not reach as many students as we would have liked.

In order to run the pilot phase for collecting labor market data, we gathered detailed information about jobs through interviews and discussion with different experts involves in different job sectors. We covered 6 job sectors that were basic to Jumla; Agriculture, Health, Building & Construction, Engineering, Media and Social Work.

We have taken Whatchado video of Keshab - a Social Worker,  Kalika - a Health Assistant, Peru - Disabled Worker Social Mobilizer, Sushil Devkota- Social Worker and the founder of RACE.

We discussed the viability of career counseling in Jumla with active social workers, Sushil Devkota and , Jibraj Shahi. Following their enthusiasm, we provided them with basic training about different phases that could be included in basic career counseling. Phase 1- Taking indecision scale, doing workshop and filling assessment; Phase 2- Uploading and processing the data; Phase 3- Giving feedback to the students and taking indecision scale again.

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Knowing the ground reality of the labour market is essential to provide quality career guidance for us. For that sake we have conducted a pilot field research in Jumla which had two aim:

Firstly, to gather more data about the potential of Jumla’s labour market now and in future. Secondly we wanted to test our core service: the interest based psychometric assessment in the setting of Jumla and assess the feasibility to work with local partner organizations.

For that Purpose Inge Patsch and Sagar Ghimire have been traveling from 5.3.2017 till 13.3.2017 to Jumla. Sushil Devkota from RACE Nepal was our local contact point and helped us arrange various meetings as well as the workshops in the schools. We furthermore could use their local office as a workplace.

The format for assessing the labour market seems to work well. Further similar research should be conducted in other districts of Nepal got get a more refined picture of the labour market. In most interviews with government officials, they first would start to tell us the number of governmental employees. While training enumerators we should emphasize therefor that they dedicatedly ask their interview partner for employment in public and private sector.

In terms of data collection we could conclude, that the current format serves well to assess the demand in the labour market for most sectors. For further interviews we can note that especially for interviewing governmental officials it is useful to bring an official letter (partnership with ILO?) to access them as some of them were hesitant sharing their insights with them (we did NOT ask them any personalized data though).

Also this requires sufficient time in the field as it might take several days to get the appointment with the right person. It is important to report those officials who have been working in the district for a longer period, as most information were drawn from their memory rather than official documets.

The watchadoo videos were rather easy to produce as long as one does not strive for perfect video or audio. While the footage made outside was having an nice picture, it was a challenge to get the clear sound (even though we used an audio-device directly next to the person to record it. The inside video has the challenge of the worse lightening. People were spontaneously able to give the interview and we did all of them in a one shot. For some we repeated single questions in a second shot.

The logistic of doing the workshops and taking the assessment in such remote areas is a challenge but doable. It requires sufficient time for processing. Assessments and Job & Edu Booklets are best prepared beforehand so to not have to rely on the online job & edu DB in the field.

A bigger challenge would be to find and to keep connected with local partners. We left the field without any specific agreements on any further cooperation. CDN would need to develop a clear concept on how local partners can overcome technical hurdles to use our system as well as how to train and prepare them. Last but not least we need to find organizations which dedicately are involved in career counselling and youth guidance and figure out which other tools they would need that the online assessment becomes a feasible instrument for their works. The development of a business case which works for CDN as well as for the local partners seems one important big next step.

Download full report

field_report_jumla_final Download

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On the 21^st of March 2017, Career Disha Nepal (CDN) and Research Centre for Applied Science and Technology (RECAST) unit of Tribhuwan University signed the Memorandum of Understanding, which will see the pioneers of modern educational institute and the innovators of career counseling in Nepal work hand-in-hand to create a society where information is free and focused.

Professor Rameshwar Adhikari, the director of RECAST, officially inaugurated the program by illuminating us with the sheer importance of research in Nepal. He further highlighted how research can contribute to Nepal’s sustainable development.

It was a great honour for Career Disha Nepal to have the opening words from the Dean of Science and Technology- Prof. Ram Prasad Khatiwada, PhD. In his encouraging speech, he casted light on the misunderstood educational system of Nepal, in both academic as well as vocational sector. He further emphasized how the lack of educational information and knowledge about choices are leading the current youth to easily ‘detour’ in their pursuit of career and meaningful life. Even though he holds a prestigious place in the academic foreground, he reiterated that youth were being forced in the academic stream regardless of their passion or will.

Hari Krishna Dahal , the senior career counsellor of CDN, gave a presentation about the vision and the mission that drives CDN. He detailed the team with the different tools and the technology involved in those tools.

Inge Patsch, the technical director of CDN, briefed the present members there about the impact CDN and RECAST together can create, and should create. She illustrated thoroughly how RECAST and CDN working together can work effectively and add value to each other’s expertise.

The final event closed with the MoU signing between the founding member and the CEO Saroj Bastola signing for CDN and the director of RECAST Professor Rameshwar Adhikari for RECAST.

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[:en]On this beautiful holiday season, we wish you all good health, happiness, spiritual soul, peace and prosperity today, tomorrow and throughout the year.  Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2017!  [:]

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On the December 17^th, 2016, Career Disha Nepal conducted prototype workshop ‘Career Crash Course’ successfully at VHS Bhaktapur.

This newly developed CDN service (workshop) is mainly focused on recognized oneself, strength, values and interests as well as competency. The aim of this one day workshop ‘Career Crash Course’ was to test our new service, its functionality, reliability as well as to collect the feedback from participants to generate new ideas quickly for improvement in the proper way.

There were 12 people participating in the workshop including 3 supervisors. The Workshop was started through dividing groups, each group had three people. In the whole workshop, there were 4 sections that were Jobs and labor market sectors, Interest & value, Competence Assessments and Next Steps. The first part of the workshop analyzed the participants’ vastness towards labor market and minimum requirements for each job. In the second section, participants presented group poster presentation in one of the job sectors. In the presentation, each group presents different job sectors, positives and negatives side, possible employee, and its role in the development of the country. Similarly, in the Competence Assessments, there were 11 stations to analyze students’ competency.  This section analyzes individuals’ methodological, technical, social and personal competence.  In the last session, participants filled up their own values on the worksheet and interviewed another participant as well as recommended the jobs according to their competence assessments.

At the end of the workshop, participants filled up the feedback form as well as discussed in open feedback session. Participants expressed that through workshops they broadened their information about jobs available in Nepal, and were clear about their suitable profession according to own

competence skills and values. Similarly, for the further improvements participants suggested splitting into different parts and conducting them in different days with more supervisors would be more effective and convenient. Likewise, if there were some inspirational career related videos and story would be more enthralling, recommended by one of the participants. So, all your feedback and recommendation would be backing for CDN to develop this workshop more youth centered.

This program was hosted and directed by CDN technical director Inge Patsch and CDN Career Counselor Mr. Hari Krishna Dahal as well as CDN Chief Administrative Officer Suresh Kasula. The program started at 9.00am and ended at 6.00 pm. Overall workshop was filled with enthusiasm and participatory approach.

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