The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of $350 million for skills development in Bangladesh.
The multi-lateral lending agency said in a statement on Monday that the money was aimed to help the public and private institutions to scale up skills training for the 1.25 million young workers, so that they are well-equipped to find jobs and meet the changing needs of today’s labour market.
“Bringing together the public sector with the private sector to provide the vocational and technical skills that employers need, will mean more and better-paid jobs and ultimately help Bangladesh shift its economy to a higher level,” director of ADB’s South Asia department Sungsup Ra said in the statement.
The investment programme will support skills training in 15 priority sectors. At the beginning, it will support six sectors: garments and textiles, leather, construction, light engineering, information technology, and shipbuilding, said the ADB statement.
According to ADB, two thirds of the Bangladeshi workforce has minimal education and only 4 percent has received any kind of training.
It says the current skills development programmes can only meet 20 percent of the needs.
The government’s National Skills Development Council has been working to promote skills since 2011 as part of the goal to achieve mid-income status by 2021.
The ADB says Bangladesh is expected to have 78 million workers by 2025, up from 56.7 million in 2010.
It concludes that Bangladesh will need to make urgent investments in higher-quality schooling and ‘at least a four-fold increase’ in skills training.
Source: Bd news24