Mehedi Hasan Bappy
World Youth Skill Day (WYSD) is globally celebrated on 15 July since 2015. On 18 December 2014, the United Nations General Assembly declared 15th July as the World Youth Skills Day. The aim of World Youth Skill Day (WYSD) is to recognize the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship, and to highlight the crucial role of skilled youth in addressing current and future global challenges.
Skills are essential for increasing the productivity of an individual person and sustainability in career. Skills are one of the key facts that can bring change in-person to a nation. Economic growth and social development are considered more priorities issue of any country. Skills, knowledge and innovation are usually important driving forces to bring that positive development. When it comes to youth skill then it can play a revolution change to the whole country.
This year World Youth Skill Day will take place in a challenging context of COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures have led to the worldwide closure of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, threatening the continuity of skills development. According to UNESCO currently estimates that nearly 70% of the world’s learners are affected by school closures across education levels. Due to COVID-19, more than 1 in 6 young people are out of work. As young people are called upon to contribute to the recovery effort, they will need to be equipped with the skills to successfully manage evolving challenges and the resilience to adapt to future disruptions.
According to World Bank calculations, more than two billion working-age adults are not equipped with the most essential literacy skills required by employers. Among young adults under the age of 25, the number is about 420 million worldwide. However young people play a vital role to bring change in countries total production and economic growth. Those countries adjust more effectively to challenges and opportunities in the global economy who have higher levels of education and skills.
Where Bangladesh has more than 33% of youth of the total population who are aged between 18-35 years. Now the country is going through the demographic dividend transition- a situation when the dependency ratio is low due to the large working-age population. However, this potential group remains mostly untapped, outside of the labour market, and thus cannot contribute to the economy. Youth unemployment is seen as one of the foremost significant problems facing economies and societies in today’s world and countries like Bangladesh. In this contest, Bangladesh can take this benefit to skill-up young people to bring the change and utilize the capital in socio-economic development.
The Government has given importance on Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and taken the different initiative to enhance youth skills. National Skills Development Authority has established with the aim of improving workers’ skills for creating skilled labour force. Department Youth Development, Department of Social Services, ICT Ministry along with other department has taken big programs and projects to strengthen the skill sector. However, Skills development depends on many different actors, including the private sector, non-profit actors, NGOs and civil society.
Meanwhile, there are few things that young people should have to secure the first job as well as navigate in the labour market by working in the skills gap in a number of areas. Young men and women need foundational skills, such as literacy and numeracy. They should have transferable skills to perform specific tasks also as core work skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, confidence-building, and communication. Young people increasingly need entrepreneurial skills especially countries where the informal sector is dominant. Most importantly they definitely have digital skills to participate in the global economy, which is driven by information and communications technology. They need to have good knowledge on job-specific skills.
However, if we want to grow and take a position in the world job market with skilled manpower the government should focus on the education system to foster youth skills that market demand. That can be achieved by developing skills through technical and vocational training, creating an environment for female youth, creating employment opportunities in the country and abroad and facilitating young people in self-employment through entrepreneurship.
The writer is a student of Department of Nutrition & Food Engineering, Daffodil International University, email: [email protected]
