Polytechnic institute in each upazila

Since the emergence of Bangladesh mentionable expansion in general education has been made. In technological and professional field expansion is commendable too. Considering the need of the country's economy, it is obvious that Bangladesh is confronting with huge shortage of technical manpower. Against this background, less significant general education is expanding beyond requirement while much needed technical and professional education remains neglected. Japan gave especial emphasis on diploma education in different technical fields after World War II to rebuild the war-ravaged economy. It went for high technology gradually and eventually it turned out to be the most developed economy in Asia. Bangladesh has a similar prospect as it has huge youth work force. What we need is to develop a strong base of technical education for the young population suiting the need of the time.

 The shortage of technically educated work force will have to increase with the passage of time. As the private sector has not come forward in a big way to set up and run institutions to impart technical education, the government has to assume the responsibility. Especially at higher secondary level more and more technical educated people are very much necessary. A pragmatic project is to be planned and implemented to set up at least one polytechnic institute in each rural upazila. Although hundreds of thousands of educated people are unemployed now, a lot of industries in Bangladesh are being operated by foreign technical people as proper manpower having technical know-how are not available here. Successive governments have acknowledged the problem but did not take enough projects to address the problem. It is therefore submitted that the government set up at least one polytechnic institute in each upazila by next five years with assistance from developing partners of Bangladesh.

Md Ashraf Hossain

mah120cb@yahoo.com