Youths (aged between 15 and 29 years) comprise 27.9 per cent or about 28 per cent of Bangladesh's total population of 169.8 million, according to the last 'Population and Housing Census 2022'. During the release of the census data by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) in early April this year, Dr Binayak Sen, Director General of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), which scrutinised the census data, said, 'The youth need to be utilised properly to cash in on the demographic dividend.' 'Otherwise, it may turn into a disaster', he added.
The youth definitely have the potential for making a nation great by investing their energy in its development. But they also have the potential to break it, as indicated by Dr Sen. In fact, the young people may not have the urge to think great and make positive contribution to their society if the community they are born into has no moral compass to guide them and choose right from wrong. What the youths who are soon going to make up one-third of the country's population think about their society?
A non-government organisation, 'Citizen's Platform for SDGs, or Platform for short, recently conducted a study titled, 'Youth Perspectives in the Current National Context'. In the study 5,075 youths aged between 18 and 35 were interviewed for their views mainly about the country's development. The questionnaire also included their perception about vote, political participation and freedom of expression. As told by the presenter of the study report, the overwhelming majority (69.4 per cent) of the interviewees believed that corruption and nepotism were the main barriers to the country's development. The findings are hardly earth-shattering, for even a child of school age, if asked, would express a view similar to that of the study findings under review. But that is a view not substantiated by research. The study in question has only provided a quantitative dimension to the fact that corruption is pervasive in Bangladesh society. Gratifyingly, the youths so interviewed by the said Platform have not at least accepted what is going on in society as a fait accompli. But the Platform did not ask the youths what socio-political conditions, in their view, were behind such social degeneration and what was the way out of the morass. If asked, they would perhaps come up with their suggestions. Thankfully, the culture of philistinism in which the society is now submerged has not yet blunted the interviewed youths' sensitivities that their older generation has about lost by now.
This is obviously a silver lining of the overall situation that cannot be said to be optimistic.
The high percentage of youth population does, of course, present itself before the nation as a 'demographic dividend' to be exploited for national development. And it is up to those in power to utilise it effectively. But where will the youths, the educated ones in particular, work?
The ILO in a report published early this year predicted that 3.5 million Bangladeshis would remain unemployed in 2023. Among them the educated youths are mostly unemployed or underemployed. The reason is their certificate-based degrees do not guarantee them any job in line with their field of specialisation. In fact, there is a mismatch between what the prospective employers need and the kind of education/training the youth get from the country's educational institutions. Unsurprisingly, the number of unemployed graduates is constantly on the rise. And it is obviously not an ideal condition for properly utilising the so-called demographic dividend. On the contrary, it is a potential time bomb ticking away.
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