‘Ensuring skills and jobs for the youth crucial for economic recovery’
Shongjog, a youth development platform, organised the event titled Youth and Economic Growth in Bangladesh: Beyond COVID19 Crisis
The government needs to assess whether the youth, who comprise half of the workforce of the country, requires any special incentive at the current context of Covid-19 pandemic, experts opined at a discussion event.
They said the government should estimate the demand for skills and design the training programmes to insert skilled workers according to industries' demand.
Shongjog, a youth development platform, organised the event titled Youth and Economic Growth in Bangladesh: Beyond COVID19 Crisis.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Dr Shahadat Hossain Siddiquee, professor of the Department of Economics, University of Dhaka and senior research fellow of Brac Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), expressed his grave concern regarding the discrepancy of the prediction models provided by the global development entities at the discussion.
He emphasised upon the priorities of the state in terms of formulating and disbursing the announced stimulus package at the face of the pandemic.
"Livelihood should be preferred over the supply shortage of resources during any disaster period," he said.
Shongjog co-founder Md Nazmul Avi Hossain, a PhD researcher at the University of Brussels, in his keynote presentation focused major economic shocks in the world and in Bangladesh.
Avinno Faruk, research associate of BIGD said access to the internet is a prime barrier to education which the government is mostly overlooking while promoting online education at mass scale.
According to the survey of BIGD, only 40 percent of youths have access to the internet and in terms of education, the most deprived are those students who are living in rural or peri-urban areas of the country.
Towfiqul Islam Khan, senior research fellow of Centre for Policy Dialogue, mentioned the cost and time efficiency concern regarding the ongoing skill development programmes in the national development budget.
In many cases the national skill development programs do not seem to produce timely, globally recognized skilled labour force other than some mere certificates, he added.
