Home ›› 22 Nov 2021 ›› Editorial
Thousands of young people in the country are bearing the curse of unemployment due to lack of adequate technical or vocational education. Frustration stemming from joblessness is dampening their spirits. In fact, they are becoming a liability for the country instead of assets. Time-befitting technical and vocational education and skills is one way of absolving them of the stigma of joblessness. There are people who, equipped with proper skills, even do not care for employments, rather they create employments for themselves and others by becoming entrepreneurs.
These people have great demand in their native land and in the global job markets. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis went to different countries, particularly in the Middle East countries, in search of greener pastures. But all of them are not skilled workers. Those who went abroad without equipping themselves with the requisite vocational education and skills are doing menial jobs. Since they have no bargaining power, they have to accept whatever jobs are offered to them.
The opportunity to get government jobs is very limited in the country. After completion of education thousands of youths are crowding the job market every year. But very few of them are fortunate enough to get the same.
There are immense possibilities for the youths of the country to become self-reliant by engaging themselves in various income-generating activities. They can do it by gaining technical education and skills from the technical training centres. There are technical training centres at the district headquarters. After receiving training from the centres the enterprising youths can go abroad for suitable jobs. Those who are not willing to go abroad can set up projects of their choice.
In this way they can achieve solvency and improve the economic conditions of their families remarkably. Such technical training centres can also be set up at upazila levels to facilitate the people living at the grassroots level. The government should put emphasis on making the country’s technical and vocational training institutions need-oriented and effective for generating more competent workforce to meet the growing national needs.
Vocational education programmes focus on the acquisition of appropriate skills, abilities and competencies as necessary equipment for the individual to live in adapt to the real work situation and contribute to the development of his society. It assists all young people to secure their own future by enhancing their transition to a lot of opportunities after school. Vocational and technical education can be seen as an aspect of education which utilizes scientific knowledge in the acquisition of practical and applied skill in the solution of technical problems. It is the process of acquiring attitude, knowledge, competencies relating to occupations in various factors of economics and social life.
It has also been described as the education that prepares students mainly for occupations requiring manipulative skills and is designed to develop skills, abilities, understanding, attitude and work habits needed for useful and productive basis. This can provide employment for its recipients and important practical skill development programme designed to equip persons of trainable qualities with skills that employers of labour want in the industries, in fact, it is considered as the launching pad for technological development.
According to media reports some 1.5 million to 1.6 million foreign nationals are working in Bangladesh’s industries, including in the readymade garment industry. If our youth are given proper vocational and polytechnic education, they can replace the foreigners in these positions.
To achieve the objectives of vocational and technical education, there is the need to create an enabling environment for the teaching and learning process in our schools in order to ensure good quality teaching and learning environment that is crucial to helping students in high academic standards, improved quality in teaching and examination, has become very necessary because graduates who pass through training in this form of education are able to perform adequately as they ought to and as such. The overall aim of quality teaching and learning is to create opportunity for high quality learning which will be evaluated through performance in the long run. Even though specific technical skills can be the right way forward for the majority of young people who will be the drivers of Bangladesh's success, we are still falling short in realising that a university degree is not enough to meet the specific demands of the market. There are simply not enough jobs in the market to employ thousands of graduates who want to be either bankers or managers without having the right set of skills. There has to be more passionate practitioners and entrepreneurs who will enter the market and create jobs for people.
As Bangladesh moves towards becoming a middle-income country, it has been rightly recognised that skills training on demand driven trades is the key to greater economic growth. In this regard, it has been repeatedly mentioned in various reports that utilising our current demographic dividend is crucial. But this is where the issue of perception comes in. Skills training, more commonly known as technical and vocational training, is regarded as education meant for the economically underprivileged and others. Most campaigns that the government and private or NGO training centres run focus largely on skilling the economically underprivileged and disadvantaged people. And it is also viewed that an unskilled and underprivileged youth should get "free" training and easy employment. It is imperative that curricula of skill vocational training institutions are modified and reformed to make the curricula more demand-driven, with special focus on skill competitiveness and employability of the students. This can be done through knowledge partnerships with high-quality private-sector employers and international training providers. The provision of necessary skills is critical for addressing the human capital challenge. They can become an effective source of foreign remittances if they are placed in different countries after the provision of state-of-the-art training.
Specialised and sophisticated skills are required for most jobs these days, but there is a lack of linkage between the industry and vocational training institutes. Government departments and private organisations even now prefer to hire employees with higher conventional education to vocational diploma holders. There is a dearth of government funding for vocational institutes. Women’s participation is very limited. Another major issue is the shortage of good trainers. Developed economies such as Norway, Finland and Switzerland have transformed their economies by focusing on vocational training. These countries lead the world in terms of technological advancement and workforce development. Bangladesh should learn a lesson from these leading economies.
The dual apprenticeship system is known as the best training pattern worldwide. In this model, school-based vocational education is usually combined with occupational experience and training for a specific career or work field. This requires certain essential elements like collaboration of the employers with the government to develop an institutional framework. Similarly, training curricula should be up-to-date and in line with the industry’s requirements. The participation of employers in devising training schemes based on current labour market demand and certifications is a must. This model involves entirely work-based training that leads to better pay in the short run as opposed to school-based vocational training.
The writer is Senior Assistant Editor at The Business Post
