Bangladesh is in dire need of workers with vocational skills, such as nurses, electricians, plumbers and IT technicians. Investment in these types of skills has great potential to accelerate the country’s development and should be prioritised by the government.
Investment in vocational education will be a great boon to the economy by improving the quality of human resources available. It will enable businesses to hire better skilled personnel and also increase the earning power of a significant segment of the population.
Bangladesh is still lagging behind in the millennium development goal of “achieving full and productive employment for all.” Investment in vocational education will help create a sustainable path to reducing poverty and inequality.
As a country that also exports a large amount of manpower, we have compelling reasons to improve the availability and quality of vocational training. Sending better-trained workers abroad will increase the amount of remittance income the country receives. Moreover, a better-educated worker will be able to protect him/herself better from abuses, which is a common occurrence now for unskilled migrant workers.
Provision of vocational education is usually less expensive than the cost of university education. On the other hand, the return from such an investment is likely to be enormous.
We urge the government to prioritise vocational training in our education strategy.
