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Making use of our demographic dividend

| Updated: December 22, 2018 12:57:40


Making use of our demographic dividend

Analysts have drawn attention to a significant aspect in our national paradigm - the shortage of skilled workers. This issue came up at a seminar organised recently by a private think tank in Dhaka.

This issue arose during discussions related to the readymade garments (RMG) industry. Experts pointed out that Bangladesh's garment industry needed to move up the value chain and be recognised as a branded products manufacturer. This would then enable them to remain competitive in the evolving global market. This factor was underlined along with the need for enhancing negotiation skills among entrepreneurs.

Observers pointed out that while Bangladesh had been able to move forward in this sector because of price competitiveness, they had not been able to break the glass ceiling of fashion design due to absence of their own international brands and up-market quality. Comparably, India has been able to break this barrier. Indian garment products now feature on a regular basis  in designer displays in Milan, Paris New York.

Another aspect was also touched upon during discussions. Dr. Selim Raihan, Executive Director of SANEM, underlined that the next few years could see RMG entering a new era where lead time and distance to destination could be the basis for orders. In this context, Mexico and Turkey, being next-door to the United States and the European Union (EU) respectively, had an edge over other RMG manufacturers. Our RMG industry needs to attach serious attention to this changing scenario where both Vietnam and Cambodia are looking forward to overtaking Bangladesh on the international scene. In this regard both these countries are trying their best to woo labour-intensive garment and textile industry units from China to their respective countries.

The seminar also drew attention to working conditions in RMG factories where our apparel workers sometimes suffer from lack of compliance with regard to workplace safety and the number of hours they have to work per week as compared to Cambodia and India. In many RMG units, workers do not have pension schemes that are necessary to instill confidence in the workforce. This may turn out to be a significant drawback after Bangladesh moves out of the existing EBA (Everything But Arms) system under which they get duty-free and quota-free access for their exports to the European Union. This change will take place after our graduation from LDC (least developed country) status becomes official.

Economists also observed that lack of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between Bangladesh and other countries was hampering growth. FTAs, it was suggested, would have helped generate incentive and constructive policy regimes.

Nevertheless, at this juncture, one needs to remember that Bangladesh, a country with a population of about 170 million, has an edge over other countries. It is our demographic dividend - more than 100 million citizens are under the age of 30 years. It is this factor that could help us achieve technological and sociological transformations through our.

The world, according to sociologists, is passing through a silent revolution. Automation, development of artificial intelligence (AI), advances in computer power and technology are driving this change.

In Bangladesh, this silent transformation is already being felt in manufacturing and some business sectors associated with digitalisation and technical education. In contemporary world, education and vocational training is looked upon as an important element to secure jobs. Those with hard skills are also able to start their own business as micro-entrepreneurs in the domain of e-commerce and innovation that goes beyond the realm of linear and one-dimensional patterns. To survive in a globalised and competitive world, young persons are now focusing on business processing through computing languages. 

These elements have led many involved with creating skill to direct their attention to the need for improving the quality of technical education but also fostering the spirit  of innovation among students at the University level. It is being underlined that institutions of learning need to initiate pedagogical discussions and experiment with diverse effective methods of learning.

In this regard, innovative measures would also require "cultivating cross-sectional knowledge with curating solutions relevant to each problem". This would be particularly relevant in areas that are associated with electrical or computer engineering and digital technology.

Such a course of action would enable our educational institutions to produce employees who would be a boon for their employers. Their variety of soft skills would enable them to emerge as leaders within the paradigm. This would also enlarge the matrix of opportunity through the creation of cross-sectional partners.

 Another roundtable recently held in Dhaka in the middle of October, 2018 on the topic- "Public-Private Partnership in Technical and Vocational Education and Training to Promote Industry Relevant Skills", supported by the Bangladesh government, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Canada, has drawn attention to a broad spectrum and diverse effects pertaining to vocational education and training being essential for skills development. The participants particularly emphasised not only the concept of making use of our demographic dividend but also the need for the private sector assisting the government efforts in this regard.

Tuomo Poutiainen, ILO Country Director, reiterated that skills need to be given top priority in both government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and that there is no alternative to technical education for the acquisition of skills. He also pointed out that both the public sector and the private sector in Bangladesh needs to invest more in this sector through a holistic plan to be able to achieve the SDG goals.

This, according to him, would enable our country to improve its socio-economic conditions and overcome existing challenges related to the export sector. This would also facilitate Bangladeshis finding jobs in the realm for expatriate workers. Having a market driven skills system could then play a significant role in promoting economic pathways and technological transformation.

We need to remember at this juncture that Bangladesh, a developing country, is on the way of becoming a middle-income country. This change would also mean creation of an adequate pool of technical resources that would enable us to keep pace with the global market and also be able to contribute towards the development of the country. Such action would of course require practical training as well as theoretical education. It may be mentioned in this regard that Japan, China, Republic of Korea and Vietnam have all undertaken such an exercise and are now benefiting from it.

One needs to acknowledge here the important role that BRAC has played in this regard. They have been associated with the Apprentice Project of the ILO and UNICEF and have assisted in the providing of technical training to nearly 40,000 students in the last three years. This is helping to create a platform on which a future employment potential infrastructure may be built. However, this process has also generated a subtle sociological problem.

No discussion on enhancing the latent potential of our demographic dividend would be complete without reference to the important task of learning foreign languages. This is an important key to opening up new dimensions.

We have nearly 8.7 million expatriate workers from Bangladesh working in several countries in South East Asia, the Far East, the Middle East, in several countries of the European Union, in North Africa and also in North America. Most of them have learnt to speak some foreign language - Arabic, French, Italian, English, Malaysian, Korean or Chinese. However, few of them are able to read the language they are speaking. That is generally true in the case of those working in Korea, Malaysia or in the Middle East. This is however not the case with expatriate workers from Sri Lanka, India or the Philippines. Consequently, expatriate workers from those countries do not have difficulty in finding work higher up in the ladder in junior as well as management positions. Both our government and the private sector need to address this issue and remove the language deficit factor. 

  

Muhammad Zamir, a former Ambassador, is an analyst specialised in foreign affairs, right to information and good governance.

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