Quality training key to removing skills gap
As Bangladesh climbs up the ladder in the global economy, the need for homegrown talent and skills required by a changing job market is being increasingly felt. At a discussion organised by Prothom Alo on October 23, experts talked about the importance of bridging the skills gap in the private sector. They identified lack of coordination among the various training providers including government entities, development partners, and NGOs as an important barrier to proper skills development. The irony is, while Bangladesh depends on foreign remittances from its expatriate workers, the dearth of skilled labour in the country often results in the recruitment of foreign nationals, thereby causing a huge amount of money to be remitted out of the country.
A major portion of foreigners are employed in the RMG sector where, according to the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), at least 13 percent of factories hire skilled people from India, Sri Lanka and other countries. Equipping our workforce with the right skills, both technical and managerial, can largely prevent this and resolve, to some extent, the crisis of local employment. Lack of skills is, of course, only part of the problem. While we need proper skills—which means, first, identifying in-demand skills, providing young jobseekers with coordinated training, and giving them standardised certificates acceptable to all employers—we also need to focus on generating enough employment for them as well as removing regulatory barriers to entrepreneurial initiatives. The need for proper skills and the need for creating employment opportunities go hand in hand.
Unfortunately, Bangladesh has been saddled with a jobless growth for some time now and, with over a crore of unemployed people straining the economy, it needs to find a solution fast. The importance of building a strong training framework to act as a support system for the private sector cannot be overestimated. The National Skills Development Authority (NSDA) can lead and coordinate this process. We agree with the experts that the training policy in the upcoming Five-Year Plan should be inclusive, taking into account women and the marginalised sections of society. Also, the education sector needs a major overhaul in keeping with the interests of the recruitment sector. All this will require a comprehensive job-and-growth policy centred on local employment, for which the government has to play a leading role.
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