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Despite billions of takas of public investments over the last one decade, the country's technical skill development is on a weaker trajectory as only 0.81 per cent of the total educated population is technically skilled, according to official data.
Over the last more than a decade, Bangladesh's technical education expanded by 0.10 percentage points to 0.81 per cent in 2022, according to the Population and Housing Census Report 2022 of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
Eleven years ago in 2011, only 0.71 per cent of the educated population (5 years old and above) had technical education, the census report said.
Economists say this poor outcome, in terms of developing technical education against the huge public investment, is shocking and is "definitely bad news" from the perspective of skilled manpower development.
The BBS in its latest population census has shown that general education is still the highest in number, with 89.26 per cent pursuing general education, 7.19 per cent pursuing madrasa education, 0.81 per cent pursuing technical education and 2.74 per cent pursuing others.
Meanwhile, the government spent Tk 555.50 billion on technical and madrasa education over the last seven years between FY2018 to FY2024, according to data from the Technical and Madrasa Education Division of the education ministry.
In the current fiscal year, the government has allocated Tk 106.02 billion in funds for improving technical and madrasa education.
Besides, the government also invests in technical education development through some other ministries and divisions, including the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Division, the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) and the ICT Ministry.
With the government's efforts, madrasa education has increased substantially over the last 11 years, while technical education remains on a weaker trajectory.
According to the BBS census report, the proportion of the population with religious education increased from 5.58 per cent in 2011 to 7.19 per cent in 2022.
In 2011, the BBS census report showed that 93.71 per cent of the population had general education and 0.71 per cent had technical education.
Over the past 15 years, the government has taken numerous initiatives to expand technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in Bangladesh, in addition to the general education system.
According to the Bangladesh Technical Education Board (BTEB), there were 11,118 private and public TVET educational institutions in Bangladesh as of FY23, offering short courses, certificate courses, secondary level, higher secondary level, diploma and higher education programmes.
Technical education data shows that there were 1,368,105 students enrolled in those TVET educational institutions till FY23.
The 2022 BBS population census showed that 105.77 million people aged 5 years or older attend various educational institutions in Bangladesh.
According to the latest census report, 69.34 million people receive general education, 0.96 million receive technical education, 8.52 million receive religious education and 3.25 million receive other forms of education.
Of the population with technical education, 73.57 per cent are male and 26.43 per cent are female.
Former World Bank (WB) lead economist Dr Zahid Hussain told the FE that the poor progress in technical education compared to the government's substantial efforts is indeed concerning.
"I think, the country's higher student dropout rate after secondary level, lack of quality technical educational institutions and absence of awareness among the people are the key reasons behind the poor improvement of the technical education," he said.
Dr Hussain advised the government to focus on building 5-6 international standard educational institutions to develop skilled manpower rather than establishing a large number of technical schools and colleges.
"Look at the BUET or the Indian IIT or the AIT in Thailand. Students from home and abroad want to get enrolled there. And of course, they develop highly skilled technical manpower. The government should focus on setting up such kinds of institutions," the former WB economist said.
Dr. Hussain also recommended that the government utilise the National Skill Development Authority (NSDA) to develop and implement appropriate policies aimed at developing skilled manpower in Bangladesh.