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Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni on Wednesday said that a large number of students are highly educated but they have failed to get expected jobs due to lack of technical education.
“Nowadays, we see a large number of students obtain honours and masters degrees every year under the present educational system. We need to rethink if their qualification can meet with the demand of current job markets,” she added.
The minister made this comment as the chief guest at an online discussion meeting on the occasion of “World Youth Skills Day 2020” organized by the National Skills Development Authority (NSDA) under Prime Minister’s Office on Wednesday with technical support of a2i.
Referring to the existing situation of the students, she said that it is the time to adopt something new, innovative and market-oriented skills education for our girls and boys.
“We do not want to create such unemployed educated group of people in the country rather the government wants students to be well equipped with technical knowledge and skills so that they can meet the demand of the job markets,” she further said.
Dr Ahmed Kaikaus, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister moderated and chaired the online discussion while Golam Mohammad Hasibul Alam, Executive Chairman of the National Skills Development Authority gave the welcome speech and presented a paper.
Representatives from different international organizations, development partner and civil society and NGO representatives were present in the programme.
The education minister also noted that nowadays people live in a digital age of 4th Industrial Revolution.
“We could not cope with the past 3rd Industrial Revolution, so we must take the advantage from the 4th Industrial Revolution as it changes remarkably both in the domestic and international labour markets,” she added.
Highlighting the issue, she also said that the government is putting uninterrupted efforts to turn the country’s large population into human resources with the combined technical knowledge and skills to march with the current labour market.
Giving emphasis on developing human resources, she said nothing is vital than building human resources.
Discussing different indicators to make skilled human resources, she said that the youth group must receive technical and vocational training, availability of jobs, being aware of the updated information and data of the international labour markets, updating curriculum, quality improvement of the trainers and the respective provider organizations, establishing skilled counsel and preparing national technical and vocation qualification framework.
She also noted that becoming skilled is not enough for a student, besides the curriculum must include some basic human qualities including empathy, controlling emotion and conflict situation, cope with the unfavourable situation and increasing skills of communication.
Increasing the number of enrollment in technical education, the education minister said that in the year of 2009 the one per cent but the number is 17 per cent in the year 2020.
Besides, former adviser to caretaker government Rasheda K Chowdhury, Zuena Aziz Chief Coordinator for SDGs, Md. Aminul Islam Khan, Secretary of Technical and Madrasah Education Division, Dr Ahmed Munirus Salehin, Secretary of Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, Md. Akhtar Hossain, Youth and Sports Secretary, Manmohan Prakash, Country Director (in Bangladesh) of Asian Development Bank (ADB), Tuomo Poutiainen, Country Director of International Labour Organization (ILO) in Bangladesh, spoke at the event.