Apprenticeship to boost skills of workers

INDUSTRIALISTS and factory owners in Bangladesh often complain of shortages of skilled workers, although technical schools, colleges and universities churn out thousands of graduates every year.

 Their explanation being that although there is a huge supply of educated youth, their skills do not match the industry requirements.

That grievance might not last long, as the government has come up with a project to train the youth such that they find good jobs and the industries also get their supply of skilled workers.

Called the Bangladesh Skills for Employment and Productivity (B-SEP) project, it is funded by the Canadian government and being executed by the International Labour Organisation.

Over the next two years, the UN organisation will train 12,000 apprentices in areas of tourism and hospitality, agro food processing, ceramics, furniture and pharmaceuticals with 20 million Canadian dollars from the Canadian International Development Agency.

Of them, 6,000 will be in the formal sector and 6,000 in the informal one, said Francis Dilip De Silva, senior specialist of the B-SEP project of ILO Bangladesh.

The ILO will pilot the model with two furniture makers this year and scale up the project next year.

The project is the outcome of a successful pilot project of the ILO's technical and vocational education and training programme.

In order to find out the scale of apprenticeship in the country, the ILO conducted a survey in 2008 and found out that only 58 apprentices were legally registered with the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), Silva said.

“We saw this as a window of opportunity.”

In the last five years, 15,000 apprentices were trained: 12,000 were in the leather sector and the rest in the informal sectors.

During the training, the leather sector apprentices got Tk 6,000 a month. Now they are earning at least Tk 7,000 a month.

In the first three months, 50 percent of the costs came from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the other 50 percent from the prospective employers. After the three months, they were absorbed by the companies.

For the next nine months, the companies paid the full salaries.

More than 95 percent of the apprentices in the leather sector are currently employed.

It is 99 percent in the informal sectors, where six-month apprenticeships were conducted through Brac, a leading non-governmental organisation.

“This is a big achievement. But we need to scale it up as Bangladesh needs millions of skilled workers and not just a few thousands,” said Michael Axmann, senior specialist in skills development systems at the ILO.

He said it is recognised that countries with well-established apprenticeship systems tend to be better at managing school-to-work transitions for youth, and enjoy lower ratios of youth unemployment rate to adult unemployment rate.

Apprenticeships are an effective means of bridging school and the world of work for young people by making it possible for them to acquire work experience along with technical and professional training, Axmann said.

He said the ILO has already started dialogues with different stakeholders such as the government, the employers and the unions about the importance of introducing quality apprenticeship on a larger scale and helping young people find jobs.

He already held a meeting with the BMET and the National Skills Development Council.

Axmann, who has worked on quality apprenticeship in more than 10 countries, said there is a lot of potential in Bangladesh's IT, health care and garment sectors.

He said the idea of quality apprenticeship is a quantum jump for young people. It is not just a three-month or one-month training programme; it is a very systematic way of getting the right technical and core skills.

The system will also help trainees become entrepreneurs, he said. “Apprenticeship is a very good way of addressing the skills issue.”

Axmann said the programme will benefit all parties.

“It will start with employers and it will be good for them. Secondly, young people will get real jobs. Thirdly, the government will not face fallout as the unemployment rate will go down.”

He said there is a positive return on investments for employers when they spend the money on apprenticeships and they start to get benefits as early as the second year. “The productivity and competitiveness also go up.”

In Denmark, employers bear three-quarters of all the costs for apprenticeships and in Germany two-thirds.

Trade unions also need to be part of every apprenticeship programme, he said, while citing the case of Germany, where there is a very good apprenticeship programme due to the trade unions having a say in developing them.

Axmann is aware of the reality that every year about two million people are adding to Bangladesh's workforce, and this keeps on adding.

He said the government's commitment to the apprenticeship system is the key to its success.

“And fortunately, there is a political will on the government's part to do this. The second thing is that a country needs strong and committed employers, which Bangladesh has.”

His piece of advice for any country about to start apprenticeship programme is: “When you do apprenticeship programme, you must start with employers. When you get employers on board you will win. That goes for every country, irrespective of the income levels.”

He highlighted the contribution of apprenticeship programmes in some other countries: the rate of apprentices getting jobs is 85 percent in Germany and 95 percent in Switzerland.

“That's the kind of numbers the governments want to see. To see this, there has to be a paradigm shift in the mindset of the people.”

Silva said the ILO is drafting an apprenticeship strategy for Bangladesh, as there is no such thing in the country, except apprenticeship regulation in the Labour Act.

The ILO is working keeping in mind the skills need for the next 15 to 20 years.

Apprenticeship has to be branded so that it becomes attractive to young people, according to Silva.

Axmann did his apprenticeship as a bank clerk at the age of 20. When he went to university his mother asked: “Are you sure you want to do this [go to university]?”

“This is the image apprenticeship has in some of the countries that has a quality programme,” he said, adding that the image of apprenticeship and vocational education has to change in the country.

Silva said there is no dearth of money but the funds have to be channelled in the right way.

The Asian Development Bank has promised to provide $1.7 billion to Bangladesh over the next 10 years for skills development. The World Bank is also providing $100 million for the same purpose.

GIZ, the German international cooperation agency, is also promoting the system.

Axmann hopes that in 2020, out of two million people joining the workforce, 100,000 will join the apprenticeship programme.

Of them, 90,000 will find jobs at the end of the programme. At least 10 sectors will take part in the programme.

“After five years, Bangladesh will be known as the country of apprenticeship programme in Asia.”

fazlur.rahman@thedailystar.net