We have staggering unemployment statistics to face up to and do something about to roll back the trend. In the NEET category, meaning those who have had ‘no education, employment or training’ are stuck 41 per cent of our youth of whom again 78 per cent are women. Educated unemployment in 2013, however, was estimated at 10.3 per cent which is higher but not much higher than the South Asian average of 9.45 per cent. Yet, this is no cause for solace because our educational institutions turn out far greater number of graduates than are employable/employed in the job market. Something like 19 per cent is absorbed by the government sector leaving the ranks of educated unemployed swelling year after year. Of course, there is some employment to be had in the private sector; yet others might try the self employment route. But these spaces fall short of the graduates, let alone the huge body of HSC-passed unemployed youth. This represents a big mismatch between the education providers and the job market spanning business, industries, service sectors etcetera. There is a potential social cost to hiatus in the shape of frustration and consequent vulnerability to drug addiction and radicalisation among the young. Thus we have a serious, largely unattended , case for the education system to be made responsive to the priorities of human resource development matching the present and projected demands, nationally and internationally. We cannot have merely certificated people like our forebears had been content with their progeny having been degree-holders. In our overall grim unemployment situation, RMG sector is a beacon of hope in more ways than one . For one thing, it employs at least 2.5 million people. For the other, 80-90 per cent of the apparel and knitwear sector employees are women. While that is held aloft as an example of women’s empowerment , and to some extent their decision-making role in households, this has not translated into their promotion– in eligible cases– to mid-level supervisory levels. This paper reported last Monday, “A recent study titled ‘overcoming barriers to female managers in the RMG’ has revealed that the economy of Bangladesh has grown at a rapid rate.., driven by the RMG sector, but opportunities in the broader economy created new challenges for it to attract talented youths-thereby creating shortage in number of required supervisory talents.” Although in a minority in the factory men have a mindset resistive to what they see as a female getting an ‘upperhand’ by promotion. This is borne out by the fact that while more than three-quarters of sewing operators are women, fewer than five per cent of supervisors in that section are female. We endorse the idea that the RMG sector being one of the key drivers of economic growth and poverty reduction , research in this area is of paramount importance to policy makers to ‘add value to this important sector.’ Taking cue from this angle towards revitalizing the garment sector we have two specific suggestions to offer to spur RMG on to the next stage: First, we have a complement of managers or specialized hands on hire from some neighboring countries. With their help or may be through separately hired trainers we should set up in-house training or retraining centres to upgrade skills, technical or managerial aiming to create pools of mid to higher level employees. What however is of fundamental importance is to note the inadequacy of provisions for technical education in general and that for garments sector in particular. In the government sector,52 textile or textile-related institutes exist whereas 23 of them are being run by the private sector. Some technical schools and colleges conduct dress making courses as the Department of Social Welfare imparts training in sewing, knitting and garment-making. Actually, we are looking for a string of customized RMG-centric technical institutes. To that end it’s high time Bangladesh Technical Education Board reviewed the curricula , learning material and training methods with a view to updating them so that what we impart to students is at par with international standards.
