So far, fewer applicants have been applied for the language test to go to Korea under the Employment Permit System (EPS). Despite South Korea's request to apply for the first selection phase of the language test to bring the most workers from Nepal under the EPS for the past five years, only 25,500 applications have been received as of Saturday.
The deadline to apply for the exam is Monday. The EPS estimates that the corona's intermittent travel to Korea may have dampened the youth's interest in Korean employment.
Tek Bahadur Khadka, a computer engineer at the EPS branch of the Department of Foreign Employment, said that 5,500 applications had been received from the agriculture sector and 19,000 from the productive sector till the last day before the deadline to apply. The branch has an estimated 30,000 Pune till the last day based on the applications received so far.
Although the branch has issued information to apply for the exam online from March 29 to March 30, only 25,500 have applied till March 31. The language test, which has been suspended for two years after 2019 BS, is planned to select 9,654 candidates for the year 2022 BS.
According to the EPS branch of the Department of Foreign Employment, the language test will be held in phases from 26 April to 21 September. The language test is being prepared to take a large number of young people from Nepal after the Korean employers prefer Nepali workers.
According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Korea and the Government of Nepal, the branch is conducting a language tests for the first phase of selection of Nepali youth as workers in Korea.
Although Korea will take 2,741 people in the field of agriculture and animal husbandry, 5,500 young people have applied for the field till Saturday.
Similarly, 19,500 Nepalis have applied for the language test to take 6,913 Nepalis to the productive sector. In previous years, the number of applications was 10 times more than the number demanded. Currently, there are not many Nepalis in the roster to go to Korea, so the language test is being done.
In the past, PBT (Paper Based Test) for newcomers and CBT (Computer Based Test) for those returning to Korea have been conducted in the Korean language test. In this system, every examinee will be tested from a tablet instead of a computer.
Based on the applications received for the language test, arrangements have been made to conduct 3 or 4 shift examinations in a day at the rate of 200 in one shift and a maximum of 800 students will appear in the examination in a day. The branch has set up HRD Korea Language Center in Bhaisepati. The EPS Workers' Language Test, which has been conducted annually since 2008, was postponed for the last two years due to corona infection.
The branch is going to make the biometrics of the examinees to make the language test dignified. The branch has stated that if an unauthorized person takes the exam in the name of another person, he/she will not be allowed to participate in the language test for four years. So far, 77,000 Nepalis have entered Korea under EPS.
Of them, 35,000 Nepalis are currently working in various small and medium enterprises in Korea. Although Korea has been demanding labor from 16 different countries in the productive, agricultural and animal husbandry, service, and construction sectors, Nepal has been demanding labor only in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors.
