Reaping the full benefits of 4IR

The country must hone the technical skills of its human resources to avail the full potential and economic rewards of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This view was reflected in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s nationwide televised address, on Friday, coinciding with the completion of the third year of the third consecutive term of the government. The prime minister pointed out that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will pose both challenges and create new opportunities for the country’s large youth population. “We have to develop skilled human resources fit for 4IR. We have a huge number of youth. The government is taking all possible initiatives to educate the huge number of young generation in technical education and make them suitable for meeting the upcoming challenges of the 4IR,” she stated in her speech.

4IR can be defined as an era in which emerging technologies and digitisation are impacting life in an unprecedented and unanticipated manner. First coined by Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is “a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres”. As is widely known the Fourth Industrial Revolution is fundamentally different from the three industrial revolutions that preceded it. What mainly differentiates 4IR from its predecessor is the speed of the relevant technologies and its expansive effects on our day to day lives. Unfortunately, developing economies such as Bangladesh have been somewhat marginalised with regards to its benefits.

4IR has seen unforeseen technological advances. Artificial intelligence, cyber security, cloud computing and robotics are changing people’ living and work experiences. The Internet of Things enables large-scale production, end-to-end data collection, and advanced decision-making for real-time reporting. It is exactly on these areas that Bangladesh lags behind not only the developed West but also the East Asian nations. There have been efforts to reform education to upskill the students but entrenched bureaucratic bottlenecks have often frustrated the policy initiatives recommended by policymakers and educationists.

Because of the high technology involved, the 4IR poses challenge for low-skilled and unskilled workers. And Bangladesh is a country which has much higher numbers of low-skilled and unskilled workers compared to high-skilled workers. For these workers, 4IR is particularly worrying. There have been much discussions about how latest technologies will affect their socioeconomic well-being. Studies say that as much as 40 per cent of today's jobs in countries like Bangladesh may be at risk of being significantly transformed or altogether replaced by digital technologies over the next decades. Traditional industries have to choose the path of automation to increase the rate of production in the future.

4IR requires workers adept in high-skilled innovation and critical decision-making. Our educational institutes need to produce graduates who are equipped with the skills of complex problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, human resources management, networking, emotional intelligence, judgment and decision-making. To put this into context using a machine operator: apart from having technical and programming skills, the employee will have to cope with a large number of machines and for that he has to be reliable in his decision-making or aware of techniques to cope with stress and apply critical thinking from time to time when operating these machines.

It is time education was freed from the bureaucratic tangle and handed over to experts who know how to bring about the required changes in the system to cope with the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Bangladesh needs to make greater investment in education on a priority basis. At the same time, infrastructure has to be developed commensurate with the demand of high-speed communication along with uninterrupted power supply.

As the workplace changes because of the impacts of the Fourth Industrial Revolution there has to be a shift in how young people are equipped with the necessary skills and know-how. Failing to adequately train the next generation of workers for the digitally-driven economy will lead to greater income inequality and increased unemployment. The 4IR can offer us a fresh and unique opportunity to address youth unemployment by specifically adjusting our education models to upskill the next generation and catalyse innovation for digital transformation. Let us embrace 4IR and commit ourselves to strive for reaping the full benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.