Universities are being established in districts across Bangladesh. While this is a positive development, the number of highly educated unemployed individuals is also increasing at a geometric rate. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the number of unemployed people in the country is now 2.59 million. Economists believe that the actual number is even higher.
Why is this happening? Unemployment is a curse for any country. In Bangladesh, the primary reason for this severe curse of unemployment is the lack of relevant and appropriate educational systems and syllabi. The syllabi provided by universities and other higher education institutions are not based on labor market demands and current needs. When the syllabus is not designed with the labor market and contemporary demands in mind, it is natural for the number of unemployed individuals to rise.
Consider this: when a person becomes highly educated, they are expected to contribute to the country's wealth and serve it in some way. However, we often equate service with government jobs or BCS (Bangladesh Civil Service) positions. Since not everyone can secure a government job or BCS position due to limited positions, where will those who do not get these jobs find employment?
Their opportunities should ideally be in private sector employment and industry. However, despite having many universities in Bangladesh, students are not being adequately prepared for private sector employment and industry. This is because such aspects are not included in the syllabus. Some departments may address this, but the focus of university teachers has shifted to completing six-month semesters or one-year courses, and students also share this focus.
Both teachers and students are not concerned about students' futures. Furthermore, in many cases, even the subjects covered in six-month semesters are not fully completed, and exams are held with incomplete syllabi. This results in a continuous degradation of the course.
In this situation, I believe that resources are being wasted in the name of higher education. Government educational institutions are funded by taxpayers' money. If we cannot turn students into human resources with the substantial amount of money invested in them, it not only curses the students but also wastes public funds. There is no point in wasting valuable resources through inadequate education. We often express sentiments about high-paid employees from China or India, but do you know why they are brought from abroad?
It is because we have failed to create suitably qualified human resources for those sectors, or the human resources we have are not reliable, hence the need to hire foreign employees at high salaries. If we can equip many people in Bangladesh with the right education to make them suitable for employment, we will no longer need to rely on foreign human resources.
There is little discussion about the budget for higher education institutions in Bangladesh, but there is significant talk about the outputs. Despite spending billions annually on universities, we do not get suitable entrepreneurs, and we cannot reduce the rate of highly educated unemployment. This could be due to students' disinterest, a lack of skilled trainers for creating entrepreneurs, or insufficient monitoring. While foreign universities have dedicated sectors for creating entrepreneurs, it is unclear if this is the case in Bangladeshi universities. If it is, it is entirely inactive. So, the question is, where and how is the budget for creating entrepreneurs being spent? Even if the money is being spent on the right areas, where are the results? Transparency is needed here.
Some subjects in universities do not interest students, yet many are forced to enroll in them. We need to identify these subjects, eliminate them, and increase the number of seats in subjects that interest students, giving them the opportunity to study what they choose. We must identify which sectors in the country need human resources and create appropriate syllabi to prepare human resources for those sectors. We can increase the budget for education if needed, but we must develop syllabi that produce suitable human resources. Finally, for those who have graduated but are unemployed, it is not possible to re-educate them. My suggestion is to list them and provide them with relevant technical training to place them in necessary sectors. We aim for an unemployment-free Bangladesh. If we can turn all the people in Bangladesh into human resources, the country's development and progress will be unprecedented.
