OP-ED: Tapping into re-skilling potentials to utilize pandemic opportunities

While Covid-19 has presented humankind with unprecedented challenges, it has also revealed our innate resilience to survive amidst fast-changing realities. 

Case in point: the swift innovations our industrial and economic sectors are making to adapt to the “new normal.” 

While key industries and job markets— limping due to the massive economic disruptions— are trying to find newer solutions that could guarantee better support against such future catastrophes, re-skilling of the workforce can be a catalyzing factor in turning around in these challenging times, especially for growing countries such as Bangladesh.

Even before the pandemic, most of the industries in Bangladesh had been sensing a growing need for re-skilling and up-skilling their employees in order to keep pace with the global trends.

Technology gradually took over as a dominant factor and became an inevitable tool for the imminent 4^th industrial revolution (4IR). 

Data from McKinsey Global Institute suggested that 14 percent of the global workforce (near 375 million workers) would have to switch occupations or acquire new skills by the year 2030, solely because of the persisting flow of automation and artificial intelligence^[1]. 

As Covid-19 pinned us all down within four walls, we realized this truth with an even bittersweet taste. 

To align the entire workforce with such futuristic trends and prepare them for the new normal, Bangladesh now needs to re-emphasize technical education, maximum extraction of the benefits of ICT, and hands-on training of multi-dimensional skills.

For a better post-pandemic world, redesigning the system is our only option^[2]. 

Many industry experts opine that it is only through proper economic and technological redesigning that we can attempt to make the best of the pandemic opportunities. 

And to do so, we need better-skilled manpower to cater to the ever-changing needs of the job market.

The initial step in this regard could be the formation of more effective and more engaging collaboration between the public, private, and development sectors in Bangladesh. 

The Bangladesh Government has been displaying a proactive attitude towards youth development, allocating Tk1478.93 crore for the Ministry of Youth and Sports in the proposed national budget for the fiscal year 2020-21, with Tk233.29 crore allocated for development work^[3]. 

Government organizations like National Skills Development Authority (NSDA), Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), and more have extended exemplary records of social and skills developments, i.e., facilitation provided to more than 1.4 crore families, donation of 40% of all PKSF employees’ ‘Baishakhi Bhata’ for Covid-affected people, financial support worth over Tk27 crore by PKSF and its associates (including Tk4 crore donation to Prime Minister’s relief fund), loan distribution, digital health program, among other initiatives.

The government has allocated two separate funds consisting of a total of Tk700 crore for the assistance and development of migrant returnees amid the pandemic^[4]. 

Government organization NSDA has also been actively working on formulating skills development policy, strategy, and plan of actions; outlining plans to prepare capable manpower for local and international markets; and recognizing prior learning of professions and strengthening industry linkage through programs like Industry Skills Councils (ISCs) with partners such as International Labour Organization (ILO.) 

ISCs has already seen success in creating enhanced social dialogue and strengthening partnerships in the skills development sector, and it has so far fueled five key sectors – agro-food processing, transport equipment, leather and leather goods, hospitality and tourism, and information technology^[5].

Bangladesh has been fortunate to have nearly 63 percent of its total population belonging to the working-age group, which indicates that the nation could be the beneficiary of demographic dividend. 

But as nice as it looks on paper, its utility can barely be extracted if the population lacks the necessary skills and competencies. 

According to World Bank estimates, around 40% of Bangladesh’s university graduates are unemployed due to mismatching skills^[6]. 

If we are to leverage our human resources to overcome the setbacks caused by Covid-19, re-skilling them according to current industry needs is a must. 

And this does not only indicate the urban potentials but also the talents that remain scattered and unrecognized in the rural peripheries. 

We need an all-inclusive approach to make re-skilling successful and effective in the future.

An ILO report shows that the lower-middle-income countries had been hit the hardest by the ongoing pandemic, having experienced an estimated decline in working hours of 23.3% (240 million FTE jobs) in the second quarter of the year 2020^[7]. 

The data should seem evidently relatable from the reality in our surroundings, as countless individuals have been leaving the capital and other employment hubs since the beginning of the pandemic, having lost their jobs or faced with a pay slash. 

The talent that we are losing amid the ongoing survival crisis should not be lost in oblivion. 

If we are to prepare for the 4IR, we need every bit of the potential that is available in the market. 

And for that, public, private, and development sector organizations must come forward together and work side by side with the government. 

We need to include the returnee migrant workers in a structural re-skilling and up-skilling program, which shall later crucially function as a platform to ensure their employment abroad depending on individual calibre.

In the development sector, organizations like Brac Institute of Skills Development (Brac ISD), Ucep Bangladesh, Prerona Foundation’s Skills Development Centre, Sajida Foundation, Friendship NGO, among others have taken various initiatives to facilitate re-skilling programs during the pandemic. 

Brac Institute of Skills Development and Ucep Bangladesh have already initiated various skill development programs in Bangladesh. For example, the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Skill Development initiative by Ucep Bangladesh is facilitating many young and working-age people to enhance their calibre through training[8]. 

Many other relatively new organizations like Prerona Foundation have also introduced various technical and soft skills development and re-skilling training programs to develop a workforce who will be able to easily adapt to the changing needs of time and innovations.

More of such re-skilling initiatives are required in Bangladesh to overturn the crisis and emerge stronger to grab the opportunities of the post-pandemic world. 

The public sector can strengthen collaboration with these development sector organizations to further boost these re-skilling programs.  

Integrated and comprehensive re-skilling programs for the workforce can go a long way in helping the nation reap the maximum benefit of the demographic dividend we have. 

Farheen Hassan is additional director, IQAC-AIUB and BBA program director at American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB)