Bangladesh pays $8 billion – $10 billion annually in salaries and allowances to foreign workers in the management of industrial sectors, as the country lacks skilled manpower – a ripple effect of sub-par education system.
Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) President Md Sameer Sattar made the remark while chairing a seminar titled, “Industry-Academia Linkage: Employability of Graduates in the Changing Global Context” organised by the body in the capital on Saturday.
Sattar added, “There are no alternatives but to ensure better collaboration, coordination and synchronisation between industry and academia to secure our future economic development, as well as to reduce the existing skill mismatch in the changing global context.
“This is a must in order to accommodate our graduates to their desired job sector as per the demand of industries.”
Sameer also said the industry-academia linkage is instrumental in creating a skilled and industry-oriented workforce.
He added, “It ensures a workforce ready with a specialised skill set for the relevant industries, but the linkage has still not been fully developed due to our conventional educational system.
“The absence of an academia-industry harmony results in an increasing skills gap in the workforce. So, it is very important to focus on the industry-academia linkage in order to take full advantage of Bangladesh’s demographic dividend.”
The DCCI chief urged for conducting joint research and development activities, developing education infrastructure, creating a national employment database, arranging need-based curriculum design and skill trainings as well as strengthening the technical and vocational education system (TVET).
Presenting the keynote paper at the seminar, South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) Research Director Sayema Haque Bidisha highlighted that one of the challenges of the labour market of Bangladesh is the absence of strong linkage between supply and demand sides – primarily between the academia and the industry.
Bidisha, also a Dhaka University economics professor, “To address the skill mismatch, strong industry-academia linkage is needed. By the year 2027, analytical thinking, creative thinking, artificial intelligence (AI) and big data will have more demand. In future, technology will create more jobs.”
As the chief guest at the event, Education Minister Dipu Moni stressed for commercialisation of research and development initiatives in universities. A transformation in the country’s national curriculum system is already visible.
She reiterated bringing in soft skills, reskilling and upskilling, teamwork development, technology adaptation, changing mindset, demand mapping and expediting TVET education. At present enrollment rate in the TVET is 17 per cent.
“Diversification of education is more important, it will not be the right decision to attract our students only to the medical or engineering education system.
“Rather, our students should have a mentality to come into nursing, modern farming, freelancing and other jobs since these sectors have also created huge demand at present,” Dipu added.
