Integrate technical and mainstream education to create skilled migrant manpower

The migration economy in Bangladesh is completely a buyers' market; when countries need workers, we send them migrants based on their demand. Labour migration is completely dependent on their policies. Our labourers and our government cannot increase or maintain the flow of migration. 

But migration flow was very good in 2022. Even if we do not reap its benefits this year, we will definitely get positive impacts in the coming years. The 81% rise in migration will provide us with a good amount of remittance in the coming years.

But we need to see whether those who are going to these countries, are they getting jobs or not? We have seen that in many cases, the majority of the migrant workers who go abroad are victims of fraud and do not get any jobs. They survive with whatever money they took while going abroad, and then they return home within two or three months. The agencies that are sending them abroad, if they could be controlled by the government, then we could get good results. 

Moreover, the migration is mostly of unskilled workers. Their wages do not increase in tandem with inflation. Therefore, we do not see much of an impact on remittances. If we can boost skilled migration to countries such as Japan or South Korea, then we have a chance of increasing remittance inflow.

There are very few Bangladeshi migrant workers in these countries. In 2022, less than 1,000 workers went to Japan. And about 6,000 went to South Korea. These countries are providing training at our technical training centres and taking people based on their demand. 

But the problem is that they first want language skills. There should be facilities in our schools for teaching Japanese, Korean or Arabic from  the primary level. Even our government can demand from destination countries that they invest foreign aid in skill development sectors.

However, for this, we need to play a proactive role. The problem is that all of these are compartmentalised. Education policy is being formulated by the education ministry while migration policy is made by the expatriates welfare ministry. One is not considering the needs of the other. 

This should be properly coordinated.

One step could be to train religious teachers to teach the Arabic language. Then can teach the language alongside teaching the Holy Quran. And then, even if the students just learn the basics, they can use it in the future when they go abroad. And language skills have to be incorporated in general education as well. Our main markets are the Asian nations, so these languages should be prioritised.

If we can change the education system of the country and include vocational training with certifications in the matric and intermediate levels, then even if few people migrate, we can get better results as exploitation would go down and remittance would go up. 

A fall in remittance despite a growth in migration is something to be worried about. To counter this, the government needs to monitor certain things. Such as, in the case of the dollar exchange rate, we cannot do much about it. But if dollar prices stay between Tk104 to Tk108 and elsewhere it is between Tk113 to Tk114, the  people will try to send it through informal channels. And that is what is happening. In that case, if the government wants to bolster reserves, it should give 10%, not 2.5% incentive, for three to four months. The taxation policy should also be changed to rid the business community of its dependence on hundi to evade taxes.

The opportunities available to expatriates to invest in bonds, including the US Dollar Premium Bond, were capped at Tk1 crore two years ago, due to which expatriate investment has declined significantly. This also adversely affected the flow of foreign exchange and reduced the opportunity to integrate the country's economy with the diaspora population. This policy was wrong.

However, if the employment in Saudi Arabia increases this year, there will be demand for Bangladeshis in the future as well. There are 12 professions in which they employ their people. But they do not do the low-skilled jobs that Bangladeshis apply for. We need to retain the access we have to this unskilled market. At the same time, what needs to be bargained for is to create better working conditions and ensure better rights.

The author is a migration expert and founding chair of the Refugee and Migratory Movement Research Unit (RMMRU)