The Department was conceived as Training and Professional Development in Education for enhancing the capacities of the educational administrators in 2012. It focuses on the national and international levels and the programmes are designed based on the needs of trainees at the induction and promotion level. The programmes are designed to help trainees in articulating the important programmes and policies of educational reforms which are in progress in the country and globally. in the country and globally. As well as keeping in view of the major objective of NIEPA to build professionally trained educational personnel, this department conducts two long term diploma programmes one for national and the other for international education personnel. At the national level a modular course – Post Graduate Diploma in Educational Planning and Administration (DEPA was upgraded as PGDEPA in 2014).
At the international level International Diploma in Educational Planning and Administration (IDEPA) are conducted annually. In addition, the Department also conducts one-month international programme annually exclusively for the middle level educational administrators namely International Programme for Educational Administrators (IPEA) since 2016.The international programmes were fully funded by the Ministry of External Affairs under the International Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) scheme.
The Department also organises the request programmes for capacity development of education personnels both at national and international levels. Since 2020 during the pandemic the Department has offered online courses to different target groups and countries for education personnel both at national and international levels.