Focus on separate pay-scale, hierarchy for tech professionals

The country's ICT experts emphasised different pay-scale with a unique hierarchy for technology-related professionals due to their exclusive professional engagement.
They urged the government to formulate a separate law for human resources engaged in the ICT sector, and sought the government's policy supports to make them future-ready.
They also focused on short- and long-term activities - for bridging the gap between required ICT skills and existing ICT literacy - to be taken by private sector and academia.
The speakers came up with the observations in a roundtable on mitigating the ICT skill gap, organised by the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) in collaboration with TechnTalents in the city on Sunday.
BASIS Director A K M Ahmedul Islam Babu moderated the roundtable.
He said the gap in collaboration between human resources management in private sector and academia should be addressed immediately for achieving the present government's 'Smart Bangladesh' vision. He also stressed on the need for empowering and encouraging fresh graduates in IT.
Chairman of BASIS Advisory Standing Committee M Rashidul Hasan said Bangladesh should introduce registration for tech professionals and make a database of existing workforce in the ICT sector - following the example of RMG sector - at the earliest to understand future needs through research-based approach.
He claimed that unemployment rate among graduates has been increasing due to lack of research and collaboration between industry and academia.
The commercialisation of research is missing in the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the universities in most cases.
Once the industry-academia bridging is established, the gap between demand and supply in human resources would also gradually decline, he added.
Learning and Earning Development Project Director and Deputy Secretary of ICT Division Md Humayun Kobir stated that against the backdrop of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the government is providing freelancing-related IT training courses for helping the youth to become self-reliant and to earn foreign currencies by offering their services on various international platforms.
During the pandemic situation, many freelancers showed their excellence in performance with foreign workstations - rather than becoming job-seekers and burden to the national economy by remaining unemployed, he added.
In the keynote, TechnTalents founder Mohammed Asif focused on the growing demand for skilled resources in artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud and emerging technologies along with jobs related with techno-business skills like business analysis, IT sales and project management.
In his speech, Professor and Director of Faculty of Science and Technology of American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB) Dr. Dip Nandi said faculty members can only include the topics related with emerging technologies in courses, as the universities have little chance to update their curriculum.
Among others, Managing Director and Chief Human Resources Officer of SEBPO Limited Raihanul Islam, DataSoft Head of HR and Admin Sami Al Islam, Managing Director of ADN Diginet Syed Sohael Reza, Head of Human Resources of eGeneration Ltd Ismat Jahan, Chief Information Officer of Super Star Group Mohammad Marufur Rahman, Consultant and Certified Trainer of Global Inclusion Bangladesh Ltd Md. Abdul Mannan, and Managing Director and CEO of PMASPIRE Limited Abdulla Al Mamun PMP also spoke in the roundtable.

bdsmile@gmail.com