Winds of change in training
From a single line policy perspective, 'Job Creation' features favourably with everyone. The government wants this, the development partners like it, the think-tanks wax eloquent about it, business and industry support it and the citizens aspire to it.
But beyond this lays the crucial word 'skills' that is fast being recognised by government, industry and donors as the pivotal factor for poverty reduction, employment generation and productivity improvement in the various economic sectors.
The business sector is has been consistent in their views that there is a dire need for employees who have skills updated enough to work with the latest technology and techniques required in today's business world. Stopgap arrangements have either been to import technical skills or spend extra money on training their work force in fairly unstructured fashion.
The government is committed to providing one-job per family and knows all too well that apart from educational qualifications, certain skills sets will be required sooner than later. Development partners are more than willing to provide significant funds to enable more people to acquire employable skills and thus generate decent work and income through wage-earning jobs or self-employment.
Problems arise from the lack of coordination and integration of national policy and programming of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) -- the specialised but not often properly acknowledged arm of the government's training efforts.
And yet, studies undertaken in formulating the country's Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme (PRSP) have clearly suggested that TVET trained individuals are more employable and are employed more quickly than the graduates passing out from conventional universities.
One of the reasons for this is the inclination of such university courses to create white- rather than blue-collar jobs. Many business leaders are on record saying their industries need more skilled workers, not university graduates.
Different ministries of the government have their own training programmes that are disconnected from each other and indeed, often at odds. Currently, there is no national skills policy and the process of skills development is not conceived of as a unified system. But the winds of change are blowing.
The government, through the education ministry, has entrusted Directorate of Technical Education, Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training and Bangladesh Technical Education Board with the technical assistance of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to look at reforming the existing TVET arrangements to ensure greater national coordination and to raise the quality and relevance of training.
The $20 million European Union funded project has seen formulation of a draft National Skills Development Policy that encompasses a broad range of realistic parameters. The policy seeks to, among other things, improve effectiveness at the central and decentralised levels and create a new national qualifications framework for TVET.
There is recognition of the need for new industry skill standards and curriculum in priority occupations as well as new quality assurance arrangements for training organisations. The policy emphasises the importance of greater collaborative links between industry and TVET institutions so as to make the new training more responsive to workplace practices thereby leading to strengthened TVET institutions through improved knowledge and skills of managers and teachers.
Highlights of the draft policy also include a special focus on improving skills development so as to enhance productivity and competitiveness in key growth and export-oriented industries in the formal industrial sector as well as increasing access of underprivileged groups to TVET skills training.
The ambitious policy has also taken into account the importance of recognising prior-learning, an approach previously totally ignored in Bangladesh. A competency based National Technical and Vocational Education Qualification Framework has been designed that will enable more systematic description of skills against which prior learning can be evaluated and a 'ladder' created by which the development of skills and learning can be acknowledged and certified. This and other information on careers, courses and the state of the market will be more readily available so that the supply and demand of skills can be more closely matched.
The ILO project has focused on four industry sectors, namely agro-food processing, transport, leather and leather goods, and information technology. Within these industry sectors, Industry Skills Councils have been established as the peak strategic body to provide advice to the government on the skills training needs of each sector.
Over the next 5 years the World Bank STEP project, will invest more than $ 160 million in skills training.
As always, the key challenge for the government will be implementation and coordination to ensure that the winds of change bring about meaningful and sustainable change and don't just blow over.
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