By Manjima Dhakal
Kathmandu, Mar. 15: The government is likely to have accurate data of the students going abroad for higher education soon.
As per a recent agreement inked between the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) and the Department of Immigration, both government agencies agreed to keep the record of students going abroad and returning home after completing their study.
According to the decision, the government is now developing a software named Application Programming Interface (API) to track the details of students while taking No Objection Certificate and going abroad through immigration department. After the implementation of the system, the government will have the record of the students flying abroad and returning home.
No Objection Certificate, popularly abbreviated as NOC, is a type of legal certificate issued by the MoEST that is required by students to go abroad for higher education. Though all students may not go abroad even after taking NOC, the government estimates the number of students going abroad on the basis of the NOC issued as there is no other option to know their number.
Em Narayan Shrestha, Higher Education Department head of the MoEST, said the MoEST and the Immigration Department agreed to keep the record of both the students flying abroad and returning home. The software may come into implementation from the next fiscal year, he added.
Meanwhile, the process of the NOC issuance has just started gaining its old pace prior to the situation of COVID-19.
NOC issuance has resumed from the beginning of fiscal year through online system after its closure for a few months due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now, the NOC office, Kesharmahal, has been issuing about 500 NOCs a day, and most of them receiving the NOCs aspire to fly to Japan.
In the current fiscal year, a total of 20,766 students have received the NOCs from the MoEST where higher number of students have been receiving NOC for Japan, India, Australia, Republic of Korea, U.K. and Canada.
According to the records of the Ministry, this year a total of 5,500 students received NOCs for Japan, 4,250 for India, 3,917 for Australia, 2,077 for Republic of Korea, 1,299 for U.K., 1,146 for Canada and 441 for the USA.
According to NOC division of the Ministry, in the fiscal year 2076/77 BS, a total of 34,000 students received NOC for their higher education. The process of NOC issuance came to a complete halt for four months after April due to COVID-19 pandemic.
And in fiscal year 2075/76, a total of 63,000 students received NOCs.
Though the number of students receiving NOC is increasing day by day students, many of them who received the NOC have been unable to fly abroad as many countries still don’t allow the entry of international students citing COVID-19, Shrestha said.
The countries like China, Australia and Korea have not lifted the restrictions. Similarly, along with the starting of online system for NOC issuance, students have found it easy to get the NOC. In online system, students submit required documents from internet and reach the NOC office to collect the NOC, Prem Tripathi, section officer of the NOC, said.