The government has taken a move to make the business education mandatory in the curriculum of secondary to tertiary levels, aiming to help create an enlightened class of entrepreneurs and manpower, officials said.
To this end, a maiden meeting was held at the office of Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) on Wednesday with its executive chairman Md. Sirazul Islam in the chair.
However, no representatives of public and private universities attended the meeting despite having invitation. But representatives from the University Grants Commission, National Curriculum and Textbook Board and private sectors were present, a BIDA source said.
BIDA will again sit with the representatives concerned as early as possible to expedite the implementation of the plan, he added.
A senior BIDA official said the dropout rate in the country's education system is high. "A good number of students do not continue their studies even after completion of Secondary School Certificate (SSC)."
So, he argued, business education should be included in the curriculum for high school and university level to meet the demand for the labour market and create new entrepreneurs in the country.
When contacted, BIDA chairman Md. Sirazul Islam said, "We have to create such manpower who can hit our market. That is why we have to make manpower as per the labour market's needs."
Mr. Islam also explained that a large number of students remain unemployed even after graduation. "To overcome this situation, we are trying to begin mandatory business education from high school to university level that is now in initial stage."
"BIDA has put forward suggestions such as making high school business education mandatory, identification and capture of value and making it easy for firms to plug into communities to announce their values (entrepreneurship) at high schools, by structuring formal slots or entrepreneurship days with the school system," the meeting minutes read.
People familiar with the matter said the private sector is not expanding in the country at expected level although the sector is playing a pioneering role in the country's overall development.
Currently, the volume of public and private investment is 31 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Of the volume, private investment is 21 per cent that has been estimated at 34 per cent of GDP in the seventh five-year plan, they added.
Bangladesh's position among 137 countries was 134th in the Global Entrepreneurship Index 2018.
Presently, Bangladesh lags behind some global entrepreneur indexes. Investment development is a major agenda of 10 special initiatives taken by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
According to the World Bank (WB) data, some 2.0 million jobseekers do enter the Bangladesh's labour market every year. Public and private sectors jointly cannot create employment opportunities for them.
If the government introduces business curriculum for high school and university level, it will play a vital role in creating more employments that will also help reduce poverty.
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