Trained youths must for maximising dev potential

Skill development, language training and quality education for the youth are necessary for a country to get benefits from its large young population, said speakers at a roundtable yesterday.

"We have to explore how to send skilled persons abroad," said Md Fazle Rabbi Mia, deputy speaker of the parliament, regarding the country's dependence on foreign remittance and the garment industry.

Prof AKM Nurun Nabi, vice chancellor of Begum Rokeya University, Rangpur said a bridge needs to be created between professionals and academics of the country to identify skills required by different industries, and update relevant curriculums accordingly.

The roundtable titled "Harnessing the Power of the Young" was organised by The Daily Star and UNFPA at the newspaper's office in the capital.

Eshani Ruwanpura, programme specialist (youth) UNFPA, said, "Bangladesh has approximately 52 million young people and the total global youth population is 1.8 billion." She said though Bangladesh has an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent, lower than the global 13 percent, the underemployment rate of the country is 24 percent.

According to data presented by Abul Hasan Khan, director (planning) of Department of Youth Development (DYD), said they provided training to 4,462,855 youths, and 2,005,720 youths became self-employed with the help of DYD since its inception in 1981.  

Speaking on education, Eshani noted that although secondary school enrolment is 64 percent, the dropout rate is 42 percent. More girls enrol in school compared to boys, but the percentage of dropouts among girls is also higher than boys, she said.

Amy Delneuville, child protection specialist of Unicef, noting the lack of insufficient secondary schools in the country, emphasised the use of non-formal education and youth clubs to disseminate information.

Hari Pada Das, programme officer at Bangladesh Skills for Employment and Productivity (BSEP) project, ILO suggested apprentice programmes for dropouts and under-privileged students.