Need for vocational training

The government needs to view training as an investment rather than a burden

We welcome Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid’s call for developing effective plans to promote technical education to achieve the targets of Sustainable Development Goals. We have repeatedly said in these pages that the authorities should attach top priority to expansion of technical and vocational education to ensure better access of students to job markets. Skill development through technical or vocational training is the key to poverty alleviation and can prove to be the gateway to peace and prosperity. Vocational skills and technical training are at the core of sustainable, inclusive and value-added economic growth. Both the latent and active workforce needs to be developed for future investment as well as self-employment options supported by management training programmes and business incubators. The continuous neglect of human resources can manifest itself in radicalisation and criminalisation of the youth in the country.

The government needs to view training as an investment rather than a burden. There should be an unequivocal and clearly articulated national agenda for skill development.  The government should make it mandatory for all secondary schools, public and private, to include vocatio nal training options so that choices can be offered and respect for vocational training embedded in the minds of the young, as is being done in a number of developing and developed counties. On the tertiary level, polytechnic colleges should be strengthened and expanded to focus on technological and applied education such as engineering, electronics, computer sciences, accounting, designing, town planning, etc, and affiliated with universities.

In their turn, universities and general education colleges which have so far remained aloof from vocational and technical training must be taken on board to provide the physical and institutional infrastructure for a robust vocational education system, and to develop and offer, for instance, sandwich degrees with three years undergraduate program¬mes supported by one year internships.

There is an urgent need to establish separate sector-specific skill development councils can impart specialised state-of-the-art training in different sectors to make them globally competitive. These can include existing and untapped sectors such as plastic toys, medical textiles, hospital equipment, and electronics to propel investment in the manufacturing industry. High quality vocational and technical education must be provided to women and persons with disabilities to mainstream them in the national economy.

There is an age-old misperception concerning the status of both vocational and skill-based technical education which we must address the soonest. Despite sincere continual efforts to promote skills-based study - the stigma of skill-based technical studies often reduces it to a second choice to academia. This wrong insight must be wiped out through regular campaigns.

 

Need for vocational training

The government needs to view training as an investment rather than a burden

We welcome Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahids call for developing effective plans to promote technical education to achieve the targets of Sustainable Development Goals. We have repeatedly said in these pages that the authorities should attach top priority to expansion of technical and vocational education to ensure better access of students to job markets. Skill development through technical or vocational training is the key to poverty alleviation and can prove to be the gateway to peace and prosperity. Vocational skills and technical training are at the core of sustainable, inclusive and value-added economic growth. Both the latent and active workforce needs to be developed for future investment as well as self-employment options supported by management training programmes and business incubators. The continuous neglect of human resources can manifest itself in radicalisation and criminalisation of the youth in the country. The government needs to view training as an investment rather than a burden. There should be an unequivocal and clearly articulated national agenda for skill development. The government should make it mandatory for all secondary schools, public and private, to include vocatio nal training options so that choices can be offered and respect for vocational training embedded in the minds of the young, as is being done in a number of developing and developed counties. On the tertiary level, polytechnic colleges should be strengthened and expanded to focus on technological and applied education such as engineering, electronics, computer sciences, accounting, designing, town planning, etc, and affiliated with universities. In their turn, universities and general education colleges which have so far remained aloof from vocational and technical training must be taken on board to provide the physical and institutional infrastructure for a robust vocational education system, and to develop and offer, for instance, sandwich degrees with three years undergraduate programmes supported by one year internships. There is an urgent need to establish separate sector-specific skill development councils can impart specialised state-of-the-art training in different sectors to make them globally competitive. These can include existing and untapped sectors such as plastic toys, medical textiles, hospital equipment, and electronics to propel investment in the manufacturing industry. High quality vocational and technical education must be provided to women and persons with disabilities to mainstream them in the national economy. There is an age-old misperception concerning the status of both vocational and skill-based technical education which we must address the soonest. Despite sincere continual efforts to promote skills-based study - the stigma of skill-based technical studies often reduces it to a second choice to academia. This wrong insight must be wiped out through regular campaigns.