WB suggests enhanced public-private role in managing diploma institutions

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FE Report
A new World Bank (WB) report has suggested that the government strengthen public-private partnership in managing diploma-level institutions to help make the country's vocational education system more responsive to the labour market needs.
"This (public-private partnership) should proceed on a pilot basis, with each covered by a management agreement between the government and the associations involved," said the report on "An assessment of the vocational education and training in Bangladesh."
There are 54 public and 143 private institutions imparting diploma-level education in the forms of polytechnic and mono-technic institutions to an estimated 28,000 students, according to figures available with the Bangladesh Technical Education Board (BTEB).
The government should own the institutions, the report noted, but "there could be an option to transfer ownership to the associations" in consideration of the potential success.
Such institutions can be accredited to have at their disposal the curricula, examinations, assessment procedures, and certification of courses finalised through a joint industry-government panel, according to the report.
The WB report, however, recommended setting up an autonomous Board of Vocational Education and Training to help bolster the public-private partnership in the vocational education system.
"To respond effectively to skill needs of the economy, this body should be set up as an autonomous agency, independent of line ministries," the report has observed.
"It should play a key role in coordination of the overall training system, in financing training, curriculum development, supervising skill testing, certification and accreditation and provision of information on quality and effectiveness of institutions," it has observed further.
The report has also suggested that the vocational education system be designed in a way so it can have pertinence to the needs of the labour market.
"While 80 per cent of the employment continues to be in the informal sector, little thought has been given to enhancing the skills of people working in the sector," the report has noted.
The report points out that although the economy is crowded with micro and small businesses, the formal training system is not designed to offer skills to those in the rural non-farm sector.
The report has also maintained that while an increasing number of Bangladeshis are working abroad, an effective system is not in place to provide training to these workers so that they can "respond better to the labour market needs of destination countries."
Every year, about 250,000 Bangladeshis migrate abroad and about three million Bangladeshis are living and working abroad permanently.
From the mid-1990s, according to official figures, the local labour force has grown by about 10 per cent to over 46 million, although the working age population has surged by 18 million over the same period.
But only 58,000 working people, both male and female, are endowed with vocational and technical education.
Despite accounting for just 21 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the agriculture sector accounts for 52 per cent of the labour force.
But the bank report has stressed that quality of general education at the primary and secondary levels need to be improved before expanding the publicly-financed technical education.