Skilling the migrant workforce

Labour migration has been essential to the monetary and social production of Bangladesh since its birth. Initially, it had been pioneered at the individual level who explored task opportunities at different parts of the community and later it had been encouraged at the countrywide level by unique supportive government policies and programmes. More than 13 million migrant personnel reportedly work now in 165 plus countries and this generates around 9 per cent of occupation for the total effective labour force (Bureau of Manpower, Work and Training-BMET data). In fact, overseas employment may be the second most significant contributor to the country's forex earning only after the Ready-Built Garment (RMG) sector and constitutes 7 to 10 % of Bangladesh's GDP. The remittance quantity in the fiscal time 2019 was near US$ 20 billion-- 40 % of the full total export income of Bangladesh [BMET, 2020]; nevertheless, the bigger proportion of not as much or semi-skilled workers out of the total migrant workforce is definitely a reason behind lower remittance circulation for Bangladesh compared to the large size of its overseas workforce.

Out of the total migrant labour-force of Bangladesh, around 44 per cent are classified as less skilled-- i.e., having low or not any skill amounts and another 16 per cent are classified mainly because semi-skilled. The less-competent migrant workers will be trapped in low-paid jobs wherever each goes - often under exploitative circumstances. An incredible number of migrant workers go back to the country annually for various reasons and they then struggle to integrate to the domestic labour-force. Workers throughout their stay at distinct destination countries remain engaged within an array of careers and find many skills informally on the job or in some occasions are taught formally by their companies. However, after their return, they struggle to fit into the neighborhood job market, specifically in the formal sector since there is absolutely no system in Bangladesh to formally acknowledge or determine their skill-models or competence level.

In Bangladesh, the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment (MoEWOE) is assigned to create latest overseas employment opportunities and make certain the welfare of the expatriate workers. As a division under MoEWOE, the Bureau of Manpower, Career and Schooling (BMET) is engaged in total development, planning and execution of the approaches on skill production and creation of an improved work force based on the demand of the neighborhood and global labour industry. However, several difficulties is there to upscale the personnel' skills including a lack of awareness about the importance of acquiring new expertise; poor utilisation of existing training capacity, expertise mismatch with the marketplace demand, insincerity in upgrading the prevailing training centres and meagre attempt to creating and updating working out manuals or curriculum by growing and incorporating brand-new materials.


Only one 1.8 % of the full total student people of Bangladesh currently enrol in complex and vocational institutes. Feminine inclusion in technical-vocational institutes is normally possibly lower. No special attention has been directed at the ethnic minorities and people with disabilities to enrol them to the complex and vocational education (TVE) even though productive encouragement in mainstreaming these marginalised organizations will directly help the country's aspiration to attain Sustainable Development Target (SDG) -Leaving NO-ONE Behind. Overseas Employment Plan (2006) recognised the equivalent rights of people to migrate for employment. However, the low feminine enrolment in TVE limitations them from getting respectable and safe jobs in the overseas market segments. Bangladesh Technical Education Board (BTEB) is primarily responsible for top quality assurance of Complex and Vocational Education and Training in the formal sector. In addition, there are other training institutions in the exclusive sector that aren't associated with the BTEB and the ones maintain their own set of standards.

Absence of a regulatory mechanism or umbrella accreditation physique is a significant deterrent towards ensuring the development of a standardised group of skills and recognition of workers' competence level through the pre-departure and post-go back period. This creates major difficulties in confirming meaningful and gainful work with suitable wages and rewards at many phases of the migration cycle or labour-power participation tenure for staff. It is vital to supply skills recognition to the migrant personnel which will be recognised both in the country of origin and nation of destination. On the other hand, the certificates when awarded to the migrant staff are recognised currently just nationally and they are largely not really valued or recognised in the overseas job market. As well, there exists a mismatch between your available jobs and the abilities or competencies that are being offered to potential migrants at working out centres in Bangladesh. Hence, the issue is not only having no expertise at all but also not having the correct or acceptable set of expertise for the available careers. Focusing on this might generate the Bangladeshi migrant staff earn higher and inflate the remittance stream nationally.

Improved upon TVE programmes and initiatives can help the migrant workers establish better and quicker reference to the public and individual sectors and facilitate their access to decent occupation in both host and own home countries. Furthermore, they'll always acquire important and additional skills face to face. Identification of the abilities needed beforehand, coordinating these with broader countrywide level efforts to enhance the employability of the workers, and offering lessons and training programmes focused on specific overseas job market segments or sector of work should obviously reflect in formulating migration policies of Bangladesh. These coordinated attempts will also bring about better facts exchange between the technical and vocational education delivery system of Bangladesh and the labour industry. A well-functioning labour market information system should be in place. This allows newest data and information to be included in forecasting the future need of skills and will help remove brain waste material- in both countries of origin and vacation spot.

An all-inclusive approach predicated on multi-stakeholder involvement and partnerships found on the skilling of staff can help in evolving safer, regular, and better migration. This partnership should include the government of Bangladesh and governments of the vacation spot countries, employers' and workers' organizations of both spots, the knowledgeable Bangladeshi diaspora network, and relevant overseas and civil world organisations. Through their joint interventions, labour migration would upscale.

A Regional Labour Industry Monitoring system can also play a crucial part in this practice. Such something will support standardise the abilities and harmonise the labour marketplace information across the place. In South Asia, Bangladesh staying among the highest remittance getting countries can take up a prominent role in this program. Analysing demand-led skills and qualifications, anticipation and coordinating these with the work market could be one of the essential functions of the system. Such a system can then support along with influence the decision makers and regulators to set the country's labour migration priorities.