The main roles and responsibilities of the department are to:

• Develop a national vocational qualifications framework to provide structure to the Technical and Vocational Education and Training system;
• Establish a national system for the development of National Competency Standards and qualifications based on human resource development needs of the economy;
• Develop and implement a National Assessment and Certification System for award of national qualifications;
• Develop and implement Registration and Accreditation Systems to register Technical and Vocational Education and Training providers, both public and private, and accredit vocational training programmes offered by the registered training providers;
• Develop relevant policies and strategies to link the Bhutan Vocational Qualifications Framework to tertiary education and school education.

The department will strive to achieve the following objectives:

• To develop a national competency skill standards and qualifications in keeping with the human resource development needs of the country;
• To develop a nationally recognised system for granting Bhutan Vocational Qualifications Framework based awards and certificates;
• To develop and implementation suitable quality assurance systems to maintain training standards in the training providers providing Technical and Vocational Education and Training.

These objectives will be pursued through a departmental structure comprised of three divisions.

A. The Standards and Qualifications Division which will focus on:

• Development of quality assured National Competency Standards (NCS) and Qualifications for priority occupations based on the Labour Market Information, training diversification plans of the Department of Human Resources and needs of the training providers;
• Planning, establishment and co-ordination of Technical Advisory Committees (TAC) for all priority economic sectors;
• Establishing effective linkage with Industry for the development of National Competency Standard and qualifications;
• Advocacy and education on standards and qualifications to all the stakeholders.

B. The Assessment and Certification Division which will focus on:

• Planning, development and implementation of a harmonised national assessment and certification system for the Technical and Vocational Education and Training providers;
• Development of quality of assessment resources for each occupation based on the NCS;
• Training, registration and accreditation of Assessors in collaboration with the Training & Professional Support Division of the Department of Human Resources (DHR) and the Quality Assurance Division;
• Establishment of assessment centers in collaboration with the training providers and and their accreditation by the Quality Assurance Division;
• Certification and award of national qualifications and certificates.
• Advocacy and education on the national assessment and certification system to all the stakeholders.

C. The Quality Assurance Division which will focus on:

• Quality assurance of the Bhutan Vocational Qualifications Framework.
• Implementation of the Regulation for Registration of Training Providers, 2010
• Development and implementation of an accreditation system for TVET programmes
• Quality assurance and approval of training programmes developed by training providers