When all across the globe, countries are in a race to develop their workforce equipped with technical knowhow in line with the ever-changing landscape of workplace including manufacturing, thanks to the innovations in technology, Bangladesh seems to be still asleep at the wheel. The fact that less than 1.0 per cent ---0.83 per cent, to be exact ---of the country's educated people have any technical education, as revealed by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS)'s Socio-economic and Demographic Survey 2023, speaks volumes for that. As a result, the large number of graduates the educational institutions of the country are churning out every year is basically generalists who can hardly meet the local demand for technically educated manpower, let alone that of workplaces abroad. Studies carried out by various research groups and think tanks from time to time have corroborated this view. For instance, one such study done two years back by the CPD, found that 46 per cent of the private employers of the country find it difficult to fill their job vacancies as most of the applicants do not have the skills required. Skilled personnel from abroad meet their needs. Experts attribute this to the existing gap between the academia and the industries. Hence is the dichotomy that when local industries are facing shortages of skilled personnel, thousands of educated youths are remaining unemployed in the country. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS), some 21 million students passed the secondary level to join higher level of education in 2022. But only 1.4 million or 7.0 per cent of those students got enrolled in more than 7,200 vocational and technical institutes of the country. Even so, the number of graduates these vocational and technical schools produce is not only inadequate, the quality of the education and skills they receive is also not up to the mark.
Notably, the BBS survey divided education into three categories, namely, general, technical and religious. The technical category refers to doctor, engineer, agronomist, computer and IT engineers and diploma holder from vocational institutes. There is no question that the government so far invested billions of taka over the years for development of technical education. But going by the BBS survey report, the question that would naturally arise is what happened to the investments the government has made for technical education in the country. Maybe, it points to the inadequacy of that investment vis-à-vis the actual need, or that the money was not spent properly. As the case may be, it only demonstrates the lack of seriousness or focus on the part of the policymakers on an issue so vital to the nation's struggle to achieve the status of a middle-income country by 2026 and that of an upper middle income one by 2031.
The fact that the government has prioritised improvement of vocational and technical education in its perspective plan 2041 and the ongoing eighth five-year plan is no doubt well-advised. So is the allocation of huge funds made against a number of development projects of technical education being implemented under the Annual Development Programme (ADP). The target of increasing the number of technically educated people to 30 per cent by 2030 is no doubt a step forward. But the point is to fast-track the efforts to catch up with the neighbouring countries in creating a vast army of personnel equipped with the technical skills required to meet the challenges of the time.
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