Just a word that implies certain age group, an idea, possibilities, innovation and a lot more is youth. In Bangladeshi, one-third of the population belongs to ages between 15 and 35 years. That's a huge number for any country and having such a demographic group could be a blessing or a curse for future-- depending on how they grow up.
Assuming the youth as a resource, their development issues have become an area of major concentration for the government and development actors.
This has also been a priority issue in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as these goals acknowledge the youth as one of the key target groups. Relevant skills for employment, decent jobs, and entrepreneurship (SDG 4.4) and full and productive employment and decent work (SDG 8.5) are the targets for youth development. More than one third of SDG targets refer to young people explicitly or implicitly, with a focus on empowerment, participation and/or well-being.
The government of Bangladesh wants to ensure maximum utilisation of youth potential, empowerment, developing moral, humane, inventor youth to uphold the responsibilities and glory of Bangladesh, in line with the Bangladesh Youth Policy-2017. However, most of the discussions about the young population in Bangladesh has been focused with certain sectoral interests that often limit opportunities. In fact, there is no platform where they can talk about their aspirations, and search for opportunities.
It is expected that youth development and opportunities will undergo massive change in the coming years. The global context and trends will change and contribute to reshaping the economy, environment, technology, geo-politics etc. Digitisation, automation, urbanisation, climate change and the rise of new economies such as the gig-economy are already changing the concept of work and are expected to create large-scale effects on the future. To prepare the manpower for the future requires some steps to be taken now; otherwise it will be difficult for the Bangladeshis, especially the youth to keep pace with the rapid changes worldwide.
The reality of Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the change process already. For example, the rural youth are facing unprecedented challenges than the urban youth. Young women in sprawling villages are lagging behind in the competition. Still, we have the power to transform these challenges into opportunities, if we are determined to pursue the goals.
So, it's essential to focus on preparing our young population for better future and also creating work opportunities. The youth must be equipped with skills to meet the fourth industrial revolution. Unless we make them ready and they prepare themselves today, the country may have to pay a heavy price.
In this context, we should draw our attention to some major components like skills-based education, developing skilled labour force, financial support to start-ups, investment in automation and digitisation, and equal access to information and services. There should be a holistic approach to, say, any training and the state or development actors should ensure the space to utilise or demonstrate the learning and provide financial support to start-ups based on acquired knowledge, skills and training. There should be a clear link between learning and application of knowledge and skills.
The youth can't talk about how they are facing challenges in terms of education, employment, entrepreneurship, health, and sport. So a national-level and more community-level platforms can be established for sharing ideas and needs of the youth. Citizen charter can also be a tool to identify needs of young people in rural areas.
The National Youth Policy-2017 can be implemented through development plans where special emphasis can be given to the development of the CMSME (cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises) sector and rural technology-based employment.
The youth are at least one-third of the national labour force. Many of them are not in education, not employed or not being given training. Two million young people join the workforce each year. To achieve the targets of SDGs by 2030 we should revise the whole education system, skill-based training and curriculum focusing on the fourth industrial revolution.
A large number of jobseekers are migrating every year without having any idea of skills required in the destination countries. Assessing the need of international and domestic labour market we can shift our focus on developing quality skills of the youth.
There is little involvement of women in formal economic activities despite their contribution in every activity and aspect of life. The rural women suffer more, because most of the learning institutes are based in urban areas. So it is important that learning opportunities and technical training facilities are available for women who are in the process of joining the labour market.
Most of the young population consider government job as their dream and if and when many fail to see such jobs, they fail to find or adjust with jobs in other sectors and are left unemployed. So, self-employment, entrepreneurship and overseas migration of skilled labour may address the problem. For attaining all such opportunities, the young people need institutional supports including easy financing and training. Employment needs to be coordinated between public and private initiatives so that none remains unemployed. Implementation of National Youth Policy and National Skill Development Policy can help solve many problems facing the youth today.
Shamima Nawsin is a Senior Programme Officer at Oxfam in Bangladesh. [email protected]
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