The government is right to be encouraging specialisation in education to help develop skilled human resources.
As the education minister pointed out recently, improving the quality of education and skills development for the nation’s children is vital for the economy.
Bangladesh urgently needs its workforce to become more skilled and productive in as many different sectors as possible. With 2 million people entering the job market every year, developing young workers in particular is essential to help the economy become more internationally competitive.
Without improving skills and productivity, the potential of the demographic dividend will be lost.
The country needs to be able to rise up the value chain as it moves ahead on the path to become a middle-income country. Reliance on cheap and unskilled labour is not sustainable.
The cost of failing to improve skills can already be seen in key sectors such as RMG, where growing businesses employ a significant number of foreign employees in technical and managerial positions due to a shortage of local skills. According to estimates by the Finance Ministry, this leads to an outflow of $4 billion a year.
It is welcome, then, to see the ADB and the government working with business organisations take on programs to train over 1.25 million young people with employable skills by 2021.
Such investment in vocational training is key to providing the skills the economy needs for future economic growth and job creation.
Improving the quality and value of education is the best investment the country can make to help attract future investment and create the new higher value jobs the economy needs.
Source: Dhaka tribune
