In the most recent public service examination for government jobs held by the Public Service Commission (PSC), a record number of candidates, totaling about 322,000, took the exam. They were all hoping to land one of a paltry opening - - numbering less than 2,000.
It is like buying a lottery ticket; the odds being less than 1%. Needless to say, the sheer amount of preparation both on the part of candidates and the PSC is overwhelming, both in scope and logistics.
Of the candidates who took the preliminary exam, only about 5% qualified, demonstrating either the dismal nature of the level of education of the candidates or extremely strict examination standards.
And what were the jobs these candidates were vying for?
Not high-skilled technical or scientific jobs, but mostly of a generalist nature that require a minimum college degree in any subject.
Yet, an analysis of the degrees of the candidates would reveal that many had degrees in science, engineering, and even medicine.
In dire straits
Why is there a mad rush for these jobs in the general cadre of government service where the pay probably is one third that of a good private sector job in banking, finance, or corporate offices?
Does the answer lie in the age-old lure of government jobs that hangs over our youths from the days of their grandparents? Or in the simple inability of the private sector in the country to provide employment to the fresh graduates of the country?
In any event, this rush for government jobs, mostly in the humdrum civil services, year after year, point to the dire straits of the college graduates that are turned out by more than 150 universities, and nearly 1,700 colleges in the country.
Nearly 1.4 million qualified in HSC exams this year, with a record 95% success rate, all of whom will probably seek higher education in one of these universities or colleges -- not all with success.
The majority who may get enrolled into these institutions of higher learning will muddle through for the next two to four years (depending on the type of institution they enroll in) for a degree and then join the queue of jobless youth roaming the streets of Dhaka and other towns.
This is not an encouraging sight for a country that is aspiring to join the club of middle-income countries of the world.
Higher education is not helping
What is absent in this vision of a middle-income country is the future of our youth and a pragmatic plan to make them job-worthy, with an education which leads to becoming employable, both domestically and internationally.
Our graduation to a middle-income status sometime in the near-future is predicated largely on a linear growth of our export earnings from readymade garments, and foreign remittances of mainly unskilled labour predominantly from the Middle East. It is not based on growth of skilled manpower, growth of high-tech industries, or the financial sector.
We cannot use the latter in our projections because this growth depends on the spread and quality of higher education that is more devoted to training our youth in science, engineering, and technology than on turning out graduates in liberal arts, and ironically, business administration (there is perhaps no private university or college in Bangladesh that does not offer a degree in business administration which offers the lure of ready employment after graduation and receiving a hefty amount in tuition).
When students get admitted into one of the universities/colleges, all they aspire to is to land a job that would fulfil their dream, as well as of their parents. They are lucky if they get admitted into an engineering or medical college, as products of these institutions are considered more employable.
But 90% of other students are not that lucky, nor are they meritorious. They fill the roles of students in more mundane and non-technical courses, including the ubiquitous business administration mentioned.
The last resort
Obviously, the job market is not ready for either this sheer number of graduates because what they offer as skill is no skill at all, or the public sector cannot employ so many people at a time.
The only way for these unemployed graduates is to fall upon the government as the employer of last resort or find desperate ways to flee the country.
So, they take the civil service exam and hope to land in one of those unreachable jobs.
The question is: How can one turn the tide and make the expectations of our youth more manageable?
Mahmud Hossain OpuThe need for pragmatic decisions
It is reasonable for every youth with a college education to get employed and compensated for the hard work and resources that they have spent on their education. But it is also reasonable to make the youth realistic about their expectations.
In a job market that is changing quickly with demands for skills that produce goods and services suited for the world market today, the youth of today are ill-equipped with a degree in liberal arts or non-technical areas.
In most developed as well as developing countries, they train their youth in a vast array of jobs, starting from construction, automotives, trade and industrial education, to information technology (hardware and software), and health sciences. These jobs do not even require a university degree or a college diploma. The education provides them with a skill that is readily employable.
High school graduates in the majority of industrial countries do not have to enroll in universities or colleges for a higher education to get employed. They can enroll in any of the state-run or private technical institutions and get their job certification within a year or two to enter the job market.
They neither have to join a queue for the jobless or wait for an illusive civil service job.
Easier said than done
I know it is easier said than done to make a leap from this state of job scarcity to job affluence for our youth without substantial changes in our approach to higher education. We need significant resources into technical education, and guiding the country through time-appropriate reforms in our education system.
But in a country where we are witnessing eye-popping expenditures on bridges, urban transportation, and power projects, we have scarce expenditure for human resource development by creating and developing institutions that train our youth in employment.
Should we not divert some of our investments in training our youth by building technical and vocational institutions, perhaps by making them free? Should we not emphasize in our policies that it is manpower skilled in employable competencies that we need in order to move to the next level of national income status?
Taking the country ahead
There are ways to develop our country economically and socially. Raising our exports and generating income from abroad have led to our current state of economic development.
But sustaining it and making it to the desired middle-income status in the world will require massive efforts to develop our human resources with the right education, skill, and training.
This skill is not required to fill long lines of government job seekers. The skills and training are required to meet the challenges of a job market that is currently out of reach of our so-called college-educated youth.
These are required to take the country ahead. Growing competition among inept graduates for limited government jobs will not lead us to our desired place in the world.
Ziauddin Choudhury has worked in the higher civil service of Bangladesh early in his career, and later for the World Bank in the US.
