The human resource development (HRD) is a
prerequisite to economic growth and investment
in education leads to grooming of manpower that
may contribute to the development requirement of
the society as well as the country. In the
context, the government is normally expected to
play an active role in building and running of
effective institutions to impart skill training
for different occupations. Such training needs
to be upgraded to meet modern production
methods, support private initiatives in human
resources building through fiscal measures,
retraining of workers to fit the changing nature
of employment and so on.
Investment in education is a social investment.
Such investment can only be appropriate and
effective if it ensures the availability of an
educated or literate workforce with varied
skills for successful application in different
forms of economic activities. When experts and
economists press their recommendation for higher
spending on education by the government they
consider the process as the most effective spur
or catalyst to hasten economic growth.
The claim of the government to put highest
priority on human resource development ends in
mere rhetoric and waste investment when it is
seen that the human resources do not rightly fit
to the needs of the economy. In the vital
education sector, the spending is considerably
without a vision with funds being used liberally
for the establishment and upkeep of physical
infrastructure of educational institutions. The
spending rarely leads to the establishment of
new science and technology universities,
engineering colleges, polytechnics, agricultural
colleges, etc., that can create the really
required human resources.
Bangladesh government is providing massive
subsidies to create technically able manpower.
But ultimately such manpower is lost to the
country and the resources prove to be wasteful
because of brain drain. The premier technical
education institution, the Bangladesh University
of Engineering and Technology (BUET) produces
annually well qualified engineers but cannot
keep them in the country as they go abroad never
to return.
The picture is the same everywhere in the
country at public sector medical colleges,
institutes, specialised universities, etc. These
bodies are helping the creation of human
resources at huge costs to the country or the
taxpayers' money only to never get their
services for the nation. It seems, Bangladesh
has become the venue for the creation of
qualified manpower at much costs to itself not
for its own uses but for feeding the
requirements of other countries. In many
instances, teachers and others go out with
scholarships to foreign countries and do not
return to cheat the country and the sponsoring
organisations. This sense of exclusive careerism
is defeating the aims and objectives of human
resource development drives. It is not
encouraging to develop manpower for uses by
others. There is the innate national urge for
finding out any mechanism that would ensure
rational use the groomed manpower for national
benefit.
There can be no objection to the export of
trained or skilled manpower from Bangladesh to
earn greater amounts of foreign currency in
support of the country's foreign currency. It
should follow a systematic process taking care
not to create a shortage of professionals or
technically able manpower for the needs of the
country. There has to be an assessment first of
what the requirements of the country are for
such professionals and skilled persons and every
effort made to create them in the needed number.
Only in the secondary phase, after fulfilling
the need of skilled and professional persons for
the country's economic growth and running of its
social services, the surplus number that would
be available should be aimed for sending out to
meet demands abroad.
The country is failing to make the best use of
most of its manpower resources and get the best
returns from them. Manpower resources
development essentially needs to be a two track
approach. On the one hand, such resources need
to be created in adequate number and retained
for the country's economic growth, developmental
activities and the running of its social sectors
without feeling any shortage of qualified and
trained personnel for these purposes. On the
other hand, plans need to be implemented under
both the public and private sectors to create
trained manpower or human resources exclusively
for exporting them to the overseas markets to
earn and remit precious foreign currencies to
the country.
The selection of human resources development as
policy by Bangladesh is nothing wrong. While the
answer to the question as to what extent the
policy is bearing fruit in the context of the
rearing appropriate human resource is not easy
to perceive.
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