Bangladesh has sought Canada's assistance in improving the quality of technical education to deal with the new requirement of skills to face the challenges in the job market caused by the pandemic and to fulfill the 4IR’s requirement.
The businessmen made the call at the virtual meeting of the Canada-Bangladesh Joint Working Group on Strengthening Commercial Relations held on Tuesday night.
Syed Almas Kabir, a member of the working group and director of the FBCCI, presented a report on information technology and education at the meeting.
An a2i report reveals that in Bangladesh, the 4IR will make 50 per cent of the job vulnerable by 2030.
According to the data provided at the meeting, 91.40 per cent of Bangladesh's labor force in various sectors is untrained. By 2025, 7.2 million people would require sector-specific training, rising to 9.75 million by 2030 and over 29 million by 2050.
Syed Almas Kabir opined that local institutes will be benefited if Canadian technical education establishes campus in Bangladesh or invest in joint ventures with local institutes in these sectors.
While speaking, FBCCI Director and the president of MCCI Dhaka Md. Saiful Islam recommended to undertake exchange activities between Bangladesh and Canadian training institutes.
BPGMEA President Shamim Ahmed urged the Canadian Counterpart to establish linkages between BPGMEA training institute and the same kind in Canada.
Nuzhat Tam-Zaman, Canadian co-chair of the Joint Working Group, said they will discuss the issues with NAIT and SAIT, two Canadian technical education institutes.
The High Commissioner of Bangladesh to Canada Dr. Khalil Rahman recommended to include the representatives from Business Council of Canada (BCC) and Manitoba Chamber of Commerce in the working group.
Angela Dark, Senior Trade Commissioner, Canadian High Commission was the moderator of the meeting.
