Bangladesh lacked skilled workers as there was a huge gap between what they learned at general, technical and vocational education institutions and what the country’s industrial firms and the international market needed.
According to a study unveiled on Sunday, the country would require 8.48 crore skilled workers by 2035 to increase its productivity for achieving a sustainable development goal.
Bangladesh Technical Education Board and Institution of Diploma Engineers jointly conducted the study titled ‘Build skill Bangladesh for emerging Bangladesh as a developed nation.’The study found that over Tk 22,000 crore would be required for preparing these 8.48 crore skilled workers.
Researchers and education minister Nurul Islam Nahid held education-job market mismatch, lack of interest from parents to send their children to technical vocational education and training responsible for a lower number of high-skilled workers. They said that due to the less number of skilled workers in Bangladesh, the country was earning relatively less amount of remittance and many foreigners working here were taking a huge amount of foreign currencies back to their homeland.
‘We are taking the findings of the report as an important document,’ Nahid said during the unveiling ceremony of the study.‘We are trying to increase the technical vocational education and training across the country as well as increase the quality of education for producing skilled labour.
‘Number of students in technical vocational education and training was less as many guardians were unwilling to send their children there considering it meant for the academically weak students,’ he said, adding that the mentality of the parents was gradually changing due to government efforts.
While making a presentation, one of the researchers Syed Abdul Aziz, said that there were 63 million workforces in Bangladesh in 2015-16. He said that 2.49 crore skilled workers would be needed by 2025, 2.91 crore by 2030 and 3.07 crore by 2035.
About Tk 22,000 crore would be needed to arrange their education and training to make them skilled, he added.
The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry president Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin said that education system in our country was producing ‘a number of graduates unnecessary’.
He pointed out that Bangladeshi migrant workers earned less than other for the same work just because of the low level of their skill. He added that currently foreigners working in Bangladesh takes about 5 to 6 billion US dollar back to their homeland as salaries for their mid to top-level jobs as Bangladesh did not produce qualified workers.
Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training data showed that inward remittance in the country stood about $13 billion from about 1 crore overseas workers, down from $15.8 billion in 2015.
Bangladesh lags behind the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and India in terms of both sending skilled workers abroad and earning remittance, according to the World Bank’s migration and remittances fact book 2016.
It showed that among the top 10 remittance receiving countries in the world, Bangladesh was the 10th with remittance worth $15.8 billion in 2015 while India earned the highest $72.2 billion.The Philippines stood third with remittance worth $29.9 billion and Pakistan was the 8th with $20.1 billion in remittance.
Centre for Policy Dialogue study in March this year showed that foreigners were working at 16 per cent of readymade garment factories in Bangladesh.
Particularly in production planning 37.3 per cent of total foreign professionals, merchandising 20.1 per cent, quality assurance 11.9 per cent and washing sections 8.2 per cent and others, said the study.
- Courtesy: New Age/May 21, 2018
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