Importance of technical education

There are few who would deny that technical and vocational education can contribute immensely to eradicating unemployment and fostering economic uplift. Besides entering the traditional job market, technically skilled people can successfully create self-employment opportunities to become economically solvent. This is why promotion and spread of technical education is very much necessary in a country with a population as large as ours, where unemployment has long been a major challenge for policymakers.

It is encouraging to note that various government and non-government institutes are offering technical and skill development training and a good number of our youth are getting benefited from those programs. That the number of such people is increasing day by day and that most of them are contributing to the national economy are really a gratifying development. However, it is also notable that many unemployed youth, being unaware or not being informed, cannot take such skill development and occupational training and thus they are not being able to get rid of the curse of unemployment.            

The government seems to be aware of the situation. That it has made a big allocation for technical education in this year's national budget is a clear reflection of that awareness. It is our expectation that the budgetary provision will be properly utilised in order to bring about a qualitative improvement in this sector. Besides, the government needs to take another worrying aspect into account.

This is that even though we have a huge number of unemployed youth, the number of foreign nationals working in the country is increasing day by day. As there is an inadequacy of manpower with technical expertise in the country, the various business and industrial companies have to hire foreign nationals at the mid-level and top-level posts. As a result, a huge sum of money is being drained out from Bangladesh every year. To get out of the situation, there is no alternative to building skilled human resources.

Therefore, we think apart from just imparting technical training through various institutes, technical education must be incorporated in our mainstream education system. The universities have to pay more attention to producing technically advanced graduates. And to attain that goal, adequate and purposeful investment must be made in the sector.