Some 66% of the students who graduated from the colleges affiliated with the National University are unemployed.
Although most of the students in the country graduated from these colleges, two-thirds of them could not find a job.
Experts believe that this huge number of unemployed graduates is having an adverse impact on their families and the economy.
The data was revealed in a recent survey conducted by autonomous research organization Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies (BIDS).
According to the survey, 21% of students get jobs after graduation or post-graduation while 7% of the students are still pursuing post-graduation or technical education or training in any other subject and another 3% are doing something on their own.
Moreover, the students studying business administration are getting more jobs and are also ahead in entrepreneurship. They are working on their own initiative.
“Most of those who remain unemployed after graduating from National University are studying other subjects outside of the business administration department,” said BIDS.
According to BIDS, they conducted the survey over the phone from February to June this year and it was conducted on the basis of a random selection of students from 54 government and private colleges of the country. All of the participants completed their graduation and post-graduation in 2017.
The survey was conducted with a view to finding out how much of the graduates from the National University are contributing to the national workforce.
The survey was attended by 1,639 students, 202 heads of educational institutions, and 233 employees working in these educational institutions, BIDS said.
According to the survey, the average salary of National University graduates, who are working at different workplaces, is around Tk30,000.
Some 62% of the unemployed graduates are from non-business departments However, during the pandemic, the colleges under the National University did quite well in online teaching and exam taking.
As many as 61% of the students said that they participated in classes and exams online during the pandemic.
However, 97% of students who graduated from the National University complained that they did not receive any assistance from teachers or educational institutions when looking for a job after graduation.
Only 3% of the students said that they have had the opportunity to find a job from their educational institution. 84% of graduates applied for jobs by looking at advertisements on the internet or in newspapers, the survey added.
The heads of the educational institutions, who also participated in the survey, admitted that they have considerable shortcomings in the field of information technology. They urged the government to pay more attention to this and increase investment.
The survey also said that the total number of students in the colleges under the National University is about 2 million. There are 2,154 public and private affiliated colleges and of these, 279 are government colleges.
Earlier, the World Bank also conducted a survey on National University students in 2019 and found that 46% of the graduates were unemployed and had been looking for jobs for three years.
The unemployment rate is even higher in the BIDS survey.
According to the latest labour force survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the unemployment rate among the educated population in the country is 47%.
Every year, 20 lakh people are being added to the labour force of the country but there is no creation of employment in that proportion. As a result, a large portion remains unemployed, said the BBS.
According to the survey, within 12 months of graduating from National University, students from the departments of business administration, mathematics, computer science and engineering, and environmental science, in particular, get more jobs.
Talking to Dhaka Tribune, Imran, a graduate from the English department of Government Bangla College of the capital, said that he graduated in 2017 but hasn't got any job yet. He has been trying for four years, yet the future is dark.
Labonno Akter, a postgraduate from Savar College, said that she always wanted to do something on her own. But after trying for almost 5 years, not getting any job, now she has fully committed herself to the household chores.
However, a number of students said that one of the reasons for this condition is the overhype of government jobs.
Millions of candidates apply every year but only a few thousand get jobs. But it is seen that many people get involved in this race year after year.
They don't even get government jobs, and as they get older, private firms labelled them as non-potential. As a result, the number of unemployed continues to increase, they said.
