Representatives of Symm Consulting Limited attended a meeting arranged by the Chairman of Kalapara Upazilla (Patuakhali) on the viability of a local TVET institute for outbound migrant worker and presented the following concept note:
A skilled technical workforce is the backbone of any modern economy. Instead of focusing on building a technically solid workforce, Bangladesh’s education system has largely been focusing on the traditional education pathway to generate university graduates. However, a great portion of these graduates becomes unemployed after graduation and eventually become frustrated. The very recent government data estimate the number of educated unemployed to be
approximately 27 lacs, however, experts say that the actual number can be 3 times the published one.
On the other hand, one of our biggest thrust sectors, remittance has traditionally relied on the migration of unskilled laborers to various developed countries. These unskilled laborers suffer greatly in competition with other skilled laborers from countries like India, Philipines, Vietnam, etc. Due to their lack of technical skills, they are forced to work at the lowest level of a human resource chain and face great discrimination. The Covid-19 situation has made the situation worse as many foreign employers of these laborers are facing immense financial pressure due to both economic lockdown and drop in oil prices. Consequently, these unskilled laborers are becoming the biggest casualty of job cuts, especially in Gulf countries. In response to that, the Bangladesh government, in addition to many global development partners, has decided to focus on enhancing the skills of the returning and already returned migrant worker.
So, for building a sustainable workforce for the local and global economy, the time is optimum for introducing modern technical education fashioned in the model of successful countries like Australia, Germany, Philipines. However, the government approach to this situation is not
enough and is limited in scope. This is where a private and demand-driven Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) Institute can create a great impact.
Such a localized TVET Institute will be able to
1. Send skilled workforce to existing as well as new markets through research and collaboration
2. Send 80 percent of graduates to placement all over the world, and the rest 20 percent in Bangladesh
3. Create an eco-system for sending skilled workers to higher-paying jobs.
4. Create and build collaborations with entities, organizations, and businesses all over the
world to create employment opportunities.
5. Reduce the unemployment rate among the youth of the institution’s locality
