One of the key advantages that Bangladesh as a nation possesses is our high youth population. Their untapped potential is, indubitably, one of our nation's greatest resources that we have yet to fully make use of.
Despite this very clear advantage, it is unfortunate that our nation is yet to reap the benefits as our youth are held back far too often due to the lack of an appropriate environment for them to flourish.
The fact that our youth don't have opportunities to participate actively in the economy is one such avenue -- despite an ever-climbing literacy rate, the educated unemployment rate still outpaces it due to a visible gap between the current job market and the quality of education being provided.
Another very tangible way that we keep failing our youth is the way that our governance and policy too often fails to include them, let alone engage them, in any direct way. The youth are far more than a mere vote bank, they represent how Bangladesh will look in the future, after all.
To that end, the government needs to focus on job creation that specifically targets our burgeoning educated youth population at the high level and create opportunities for vocational education and technical training with a keen understanding of the skills that our economy will require as we move past the LDC tag in the near future.
Our nation is currently experiencing a demographic dividend, and it is crucial for us to utilize our youth population, so that we can take that next logical step to becoming a full-fledged middle-income country while achieving the SDGs in parallel.
This is the only way we can prosper in an equitable way and avoid the dreaded middle income trap that far too many nations have found themselves in.
