Job market and pragmatic education system

The link between our education system and the job market has long been missing.

Over the decades, successive governments have been reluctant to overhaul the entire curriculum of educational institutions, causing frustration among jobseekers and employers alike.

The government seems to have no vision for upgrading the syllabuses of all tiers in the education system, which results in gloom for degree holders navigating the job market. The university graduates are neither capable of finding suitable jobs, nor they are fit for launching any businesses of their own.

How will the country’s policymakers avoid this frustrating state of affairs stoking social disharmony, due to the joblessness among youths? Who will fix the obsolete education system that is even unable to produce good clerks?

The partial picture of the country’s outdated education system was made public by the local think-tank Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) on Saturday. It recommended aligning the curriculum with current job market demands, ensuring that the students are more equipped for employment. Addressing a dialogue on Saturday titled “Skills Gap and Youth Employment in Bangladesh,” speakers also pointed out that Bangladesh’s unemployment rate is higher among educated youths, indicating that their education did not empower them with the right skills.

They also suggested appointing career counsellors at every educational institution to help students identify their strengths, prepare curriculum vitae and job applications, and engage in entrepreneurship from an early age. The recommendations further included expanding computer and internet connectivity, skills training on soft, advanced ICT, service industry, and 4IR skills to respond to rising employer demand. Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (MCCI) President Barrister Nihad Kabir at the programme said a big deficit is evident in Bangla language skill among the students too. They should learn about new technology and improve basic knowledge for tackling the job market. Others also pointed fingers at the lack of skills in English.

It is puzzling to hear from a major business chamber president that job seekers have a deficiency in the Bangla language, let alone English or other foreign languages. Then what are our schools, colleges and universities are tutoring? After reading English as a compulsory subject up to a higher secondary level spanning 12 years, most students cannot write the language correctly. Here comes overhauling the teaching methods overwhelmingly biased towards memorisation.

In most cases, teachers are not well-versed about what they are tutoring their students. It is nothing but a stupid waste of time, resources, and the future of our next generation. Who will think about the future of the infested education system? Who will plug the loopholes? Let us now forget about entrepreneurship development for space constraints. The policymakers need to have a clear understanding of the job market demand, and necessities to align the curriculum suiting best with the skills needed in the job market.

Computer literacy, science education, and language competence are some of the major areas requiring fast-track focus to enable the large number of educated but unemployed youths to get jobs.

The current system of long 12-year compulsory English learning is worthless, as it has miserably failed to make our students’ English fluent. A five-year course is good enough if teachers know good English, and are capable of teaching their students.

The same duration is also applicable to other foreign languages also. The more languages our students are capable of, the more opportunities they will find out. In this regard, foreign language centers for teaching Arabic, Germany, and France could be launched at district levels as huge job opportunities are available in countries that speak those languages. Diploma and short courses on automobiles, garment merchandising, and robotic science may also be undertaken to cope with the looming challenges and opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution.

Hence, it is the planning and vision that are necessary for restructuring our decades-old and largely unproductive education system.

Without a pragmatic and job-market-driven education system, our current pace of development is bound to slow as human resource is the main engine of growth.