TIB for youth’s involvement for sustainable development

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) on Friday placed a nine-point recommendation to ensure sustainable development and national advancement through using the youth forces of the country.

TIB came up with the nine-point recommendations in a statement on the International Youth Day urging the government to ensure education and employment for the youth for building a sustainable development, well-governed and corruption-free society.

TIB in the recommendation said the youth population should be educated and technically skilled in work-oriented education considering demand of the current international labour market.

Uninterrupted education should be ensured through special incentives for financially poor and female students, it said

TIB suggested giving emphasis on technical education alongside ensuring enough allocation for the education sector as per the recommendations of the United Nations.

It said employment should be created for the youth through short, medium and long-term specific plans while initiatives should be taken to resume the industries from which the youths were unemployed through special incentives.

Incentives should be provided to young entrepreneurs while initiatives should be taken to prepare unemployed youth or fresh graduates for alternative careers (outsourcing, freelancing) through specialized training, said the TIB

It said the recruitment process for all posts of jobs should be corruption-free and it must ensure equal competition on the basis of merit.

The anti-graft watchdog also said the government should take special initiative to bring back the students who dropped out due to Covid-19 pandemic while personal privacy and freedom of expression should be ensured for all citizens, including the youth.

Citing a report of ‘The Global Employment Trends for Youth-2022’ published by the International Labor Organization (ILO), TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said the youth unemployment rate is 10.6 percent in Bangladesh while the unemployment rate at the national level is only 4.2 percent.

The majority of the population affected by coronavirus pandemic in the last two years was the youth but there is still no concerted initiative to make the huge number of youth population skilled and employable which is really disappointing, he said.

Dr Zaman said a recently published survey says that 47 percent of educated people are unemployed in the country and the key reason is that the skills required to join the workforce cannot be acquired with the knowledge gained from formal education.

The problem is gradually increasing but there is no concerted effort to solve it, which is really worrying, he added