Earn while you learn!

While formal education is a critical channel for skills-development, it is not the only channel.  There are also opportunities for those who have missed out on formal schooling, such as basic skills training, literacy courses, non-formal vocational training, on-the-job training and apprenticeships.  

An apprenticeship is a unique form of vocational education, combining on-the-job learning and school-based training, for specially defined competencies and work processes.  An apprenticeship can be completed wholly at the industry or in a combination of both classroom and industry training which is the model the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is currently promoting. 

The National Skills Development Policy recognises both formal and informal apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are better than informal on-the-job training in several ways.  Firstly, apprenticeships within the national framework of skills are structured, with competency-based curricula, logbooks and assessments so apprentices can see their progress towards a goal.  According to the Labour Act 2006 of Bangladesh, apprenticeships should be based on a written employment contract with a compensatory payment and have a standard social protection scheme, as well as a formal assessment and a recognised certification at the end.  

In April, the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), Kakrail, Dhaka inaugurated an 'Apprenticeship Cell'.  International Labour Organisation (ILO) provided technical support and computers to make the office digital-friendly.  BMET will digitally register apprentices, monitor apprenticeship programmes and issue certificates as per the recommendation of employers or enterprises.  Apprentices will thus receive nationally recognised qualifications that will make them more employable.

The Labour Act 2006 encourages enterprises with more than 50 employees to offer formal apprenticeships and provides incentives, including income tax relief for all costs incurred by apprenticeship training.  The scheme is not yet widely known and many employers are unaware of the legislation and require capacity support to take advantage of it.  

The ILO's Bangladesh Skills for Employment and Productivity project with support from the Canadian government is piloting formal apprenticeship programmes targeting 6,000 youths in five priority sectors to learn and demonstrate best practices for replication.  So far, apprenticeship programmes have been set up in the furniture sector, at Nadia Furniture and Brothers Furniture in Manikganj and Savar and in the agro food sector with Rani Foods in Savar.  From these pilot projects, lessons and best practices are being learned for replication and scale up. 

From ILO's observations from the pilot apprenticeship programme, the most encouraging thing was the reaction of the factory owners.  Though they previously conducted apprenticeship, they never considered doing it in a structured manner with an underlying curriculum to follow nor were they aware of the tax incentives available to them.  They said they found the new structured apprenticeship system led to better results.  One of the reasons for this was that the new system included not only practical skills but also soft skills such as communications, basic literacy and numeracy as well as topics such as occupational safety and health.  Factory owners and youths were unaware that apprenticeships should be registered with the BMET and youths can receive certificates upon completion of their apprenticeship.  ILO helped link up BMET with these factories to ensure that the apprentices received their certificates.

The pilot programme also helped identify some challenges.  ILO promotes apprenticeships as an alternative to education so many of the youths applying to the programme had very little education.  They required extra attention to pass the basic literacy and numeracy parts of the training.  In the future, youths with limited educational backgrounds should perhaps have access to specialised classes to help them meet the numeracy and literacy requirements.  To address this, ILO has designed Pre-Vocational Levels (level 1 & level 2) in the National Technical and Vocational Qualification Framework (NTVQF) to accommodate under-privileged learners with low literacy and numeracy skills.  Another challenge was helping the apprentices access the theoretical part of the training.   The training facilities did not have the flexibility to enrol apprentices and instead, trainers had to visit the factories to teach the soft skills.  In the future, a more flexible system is required to make access easier.

Countries with well-established apprenticeship systems tend to be better at managing school-to-work transitions for youth and enjoy lower ratios of youth unemployment rate to adult unemployment rate.  Apprenticeships are an effective means of bridging school and the world of work for young people by making it possible for them to acquire work experience along with technical and professional training.  More private sector companies should consider working with the government skills system and BMET to provide structured apprenticeships to youths in order to help Bangladesh grow.

The writer is a Senior Skills Development Specialist, Bangladesh Skills for Employment and Productivity (B-SEP) Project, ILO Country Office for Bangladesh.

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