Human resource investment

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THE budgetary allocations of the government during the last fifteen years or so showed a preference for the social sectors such as education, health and allied ones. Greater resources have certainly flowed into these sectors in a bid to developing human resources.
But education, which remains the pivotal sector for human resources development, according to the last report of Transparency International (TI), is the second most corrupt sector among all the sectors that it examined. It is obvious that dealing effectively with this pervasive corruption in education and putting in place a sound accountability structure in the sector and operating it effectively, would make significant contributions towards the creation of human resources.
Besides, Bangladesh's education system remains preponderantly generalist, archaic, non life-oriented or unproductive. Science, technology, the industrial arts, etc., which ought to be at the core of a nation's education system to cope with economic or developmental needs, are still not getting adequate attention. In contrast, religious or madrasha education with no utility in nation building or economic growth devours a major share of the education budget. Therefore, in order to really speed up the creation of human resources, sweeping modernisation and upgradation of the educational system are very necessary.
Human resources created by the medical, engineering and other institutions after much sacrifices are lost in many cases because of the phenomenon of the brain drain or remain unemployed for long in the country. The unskilled or semi-skilled Bangladeshi workers who take up employment in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf countries regularly remit money in foreign currencies to their beneficiaries in Bangladesh.
The opposite is the case of the skilled or highly trained professionals from Bangladesh who use their country like a launching pad to build careers and settle in the developed countries of Europe or North America. Most of them hardly send remittances to the country. The government of Bangladesh presently has no effective policies in place to check this unacceptable form of loss of its human resources which it creates at high costs to itself but is used by other countries. It must have a policy and execute it well for the overall development and availability of human resources in the country.
Abul Kalam Azad
Azimpur, Dhaka