The country is going to get one lakh skilled drivers in next five years with implementation of the Skills for Employment Investment Programme (SEIP) project, which will help reduce the road accidents significantly.
The government has taken the project mainly to reduce road accidents by 50 percent by 2020 and meet the growing local and international demand of competent drivers.
“The government has decided to give training to 52,000 drivers under the project in the next three years from 2018 to 2020,” Syed Nasir Ershad, AEPD (public-1) of the SEIP, told media on Monday.
“A total of one lakh drivers will be given motor-vehicle training under the SEIP project in the next five years,” he said, adding that Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) is currently entrusted with giving training to 22,800 people while Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) to 17,040 others.
Agreements have already been signed with SEIP and BRTC and BMET to this end.
Under the project, officials said, the drivers will not only be given motor-vehicle driving training, but also be given automobile mechanical training and moral education to make them truly efficient, and all of them will be given driving license upon completion of their training.
They will also be taught two languages, English and Arabic, to make capable to get overseas jobs.
The people having minimum eight pass certificates, National Identity Cards (NIDs) and aged between 20 and 35 will be eligible for applying to get the four-month (360 hours) training. The trainees will be given Taka 100 per day upon their presence.
“We have already started giving motor-vehicle driving and maintenance training to 22,800 people from March 3 this year with a target to complete it by 2020 in line with the agreement signed with the SEIP,” BRTC Chairman and also Additional Secretary Farid Ahmed Bhuiyan told.
“Already 1,800 drivers have got training under the project and training for 2,000 more drivers has started from July 5,” he said.
Farid said: “A total of 36,000 people will be provided with the training under the SEIP project. In the first phase, 22,800 people will be given the training from 2018 to 2020 and the rest will be brought under the training from 2021 to 2022”.
“The training will be held at three training institutes and 16 training centres of the BRTC,” he said, adding that the government has given 100 vehicles from the government transport pool in this regard.
About the outcome of the training, the BRTC Chairman said it will a multi-dimensional effect as the drivers will be efficient not only in driving but also in English and Arabic languages, which will help them get local and overseas jobs.
