Are universities ready to meet the demand of the labour market?

The universities of Bangladesh have accomplished many great achievements over the last 50 years: contributing to independence, creating a democratic movement, and building the nation. However, some of those achievements have recently been overshadowed by negative trends such as worsening teacher-student relations, a lack of innovation in teaching and research, students spending more time on job-related readings than the academic curriculum, and a lack of preparedness to embrace recent developments in the information and communication technology sector (ICT).

Moreover, while national unemployment rate in Bangladesh is at 4.2%, youth unemployment rate is as high as 10.6% with an increase of 2.6 % for those with tertiary education (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2018). At the same time, local industries lack skilled labourers because graduates are not meeting their requirements (Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, 2017).

These experiences have been repeatedly voiced by students and academics in the dialogues of the Centre for Genocide Studies (CGS) of the University of Dhaka and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES). In order to change these trends, CGS, FES and other partners launched a programme on tertiary education reforms in 2014. The purpose was to initiate discussions on where the university system is heading and to raise questions on the improvement of education and research, preparation for a new age of automation and digitization, labour market responsiveness and the university’s role in the creation of an equal and gender-responsive society.

“The timing was perfect. Since in a few years from now in 2021 the University of Dhaka, the oldest University of the country, and a University that literally gave birth to Bangladesh, will be 100 years old, there is good reason to reflect on the state of higher education in Bangladesh,” said by Professor Imtiaz Ahmed, one of the key partners of the program.