Child labor in Nepal is a serious concern. Around 40% or 3,140,000 of the 7,700,000 children aged between 5 to 17 years are engaged in work. Of this 3,140,000, about half or 1,600,000 child laborers are in exploitative working conditions; and about 621,000 are in hazardous work. Children are found working in carpet and entertainment industries, mining, bead making, portering, brick production, embroidery (zari), car/motorcycle repair workshops, domestic work, cross border smuggling and roadside hawking. Each sector has its own array of push/pull factors influencing entry and exit of children and which determine the nature and extent of exploitative work children are exposed to.
As part of World Education’s Naya Bato Naya Paila project funded by United States Department of Labor, this small scale research on integrating pre-vocational education is linked to one of the program's aims of working closely with the Government of Nepal to improve the relevance of curriculum in government schools. Pre-vocational education is expected to better equip the students with knowledge and life skills with which to enter the labor force. By making education more relevant it will also encourage students to continue their education thereby reducing child labor. World Education, 2013.
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