THE number of unemployed graduates in the country is steadily growing while the country is simultaneously suffering from a shortage of quality manpower to fill up specialized work vacancies. Experts blamed the mismatch in our education system saying that it is not producing enough quality manpower and requires reforms. Otherwise why would the number of unemployed graduates be rising in one hand while the private sector is depending to a large extent on hired manpower from other countries to meet the gap. This is a delicate situation. London based magazine The Economist in a special report recently said around 47 percent Bangladeshi graduates and Master degree holders are unemployed at the moment. In South Asia, Bangladesh ranked second from the bottom after Afghanistan which has 65 percent of graduates unemployed. In India the rate of unemployed graduates is at 33 percent, in Nepal 20 percent, in Pakistan 28 percent and in Sri Lanka 7.8 percent.Quoting Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) report -2010 it said the country’s present workforce is 5.67 crore while 5.41 crore are working. This means only 26 lakh people are unemployed. But it includes around 1.11 crore who are self- employed and working at family level firms and around 1.6 crore day-labourers who work on a casual basis. The World Bank has contested the BBS report saying it is a sharply downsizesd estimate. Moreover, around 13 lakh youths are joining the job market every year with half of them becoming unemployed. The ILO suggests nearly 3 crore people are unemployed in Bangladesh and if the trend continues, their number would stand at 6 crore by 2015 as per The Economist report. The UNDP on the other hand said, from 1990 to 1995 the number of unemployed youths in the 15-24 age group was 29 lakh, albeit disputed, but it rose five times to 1.32 crore from 2005 to 2010. Bangladesh Economic Association said 22 lakh people entered the job every year and only 7 lakh got jobs. Then what about the rest ? The answer is that most of them leave the country with overseas job permits to the Middle East and other expanding economies. Bangladesh economy is also rapidly expanding creating jobs for new-comers. But far as the unemployed graduates are concerned, the quality of education and job market requirements for technical hands are causing the exponential mismatch. Interpreting the situation Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) and University Grants Commission (UGC) have called for remodelling our education curriculum at higher levels to meet the market requirement. They held the view that conventional education must make room for technical education keeping eyes on the expanding market situation. In this case public universities are maintaining some standards but private universities are just selling graduate certificates to young people without developing highly skilled manpower. We hold the view that education is an expensive investment made by a family and it must therefore be market oriented. The government and the private sector must work together to achieve the goal to see that our educated youths get jobs as soon as they leave the campus.
