Bangladesh: Skills for Employment Investment Program - Tranche 3

Education / Technical and vocational education and training

Bangladesh's economy has achieved robust growth of more than 6% annually since 2010, driven largely by the booming garment sector and increasing remittance inflows. However, to place the country into a sustained growth path with diversified economic bases, inadequate education and skills of its workforce pose a binding constraint. More than half of the labor force have only primary education or less; and less than 4% of the working-age population (aged 15-59) had received any technical or vocational training. The working-age population is expanding fast, from 87 million in 2011 to 119 million by 2026, with 2 million potential new entrants to the labor force every year. In the early 2010s, technical and vocational training institutes trained fewer than 500,000 people annually; and poor quality of training resulted in only 25%-40% of graduates finding jobs. Recognizing the challenge, the government has embarked on major educational and training reforms since 2010 to build a strong workforce that will ensure the demographic dividend for a dynamic economy. Significant investments by the government and development partners have underpinned sharp increases in primary and secondary school enrollments. For technical and vocational skills training, the National Skills Development Policy (NSDP) in 2011 has steered major institutional and policy reforms to create a highly skilled workforce across diverse industrial sectors.

Anchored in the NSDP, the SEIP has adopted the MFF modality to assist the government's strategic road map that intends to transform its skills development system both quantitatively and qualitatively. The roadmap envisages to equip the growing young population with industry relevant, job-ready skills to enhance their employability, productivity, and income. The MFF supports the government's ambitious skilling agenda in phases for the following areas. First, it expands the national training capacity by mobilizing the private sector (i.e., industry associations) and revitalizing public training institutes to scale up the provision of job-ready skills training. The expanded provision will assure that women and socially disadvantaged groups can access the training. Second, the MFF aligns quality and contents of training with specific industrial demands by fostering direct involvement from industries. Quality assurance is enhanced through improved training infrastructure, trainers' qualifications, and assessment and certification procedures. Finally, the MFF supports key institutional reforms: the establishment of the National Skills Development Authority (NSDA) to coordinate fragmented training systems in the public and private sectors; and the creation of the National Human Resource Development Fund (NHRDF) to serve as a unified financing mechanism to sustain nationwide skilling initiatives.

Income and productivity of the working population aged 15 and over increased

Inclusive access to basic, mid-level, and advanced skills training for priority sectors increased.

Market-responsive inclusive skills training delivered

Quality assurance system strengthened

Institutions strengthened

Monitoring and management for skills development enhanced

Output 1:

Total number of new entrants enrolled up to 30 June 2022 was 79,527, and certified was 38,622. Out of the certified trainees, 23,514 were employed (60.88% of the certified).

The target of 3,000 trainees from socially disadvantaged groups has been split into two parts. PKSF has signed a contract to train 2,000 people. The other contract to train 1,000 disadvantaged trainees has again been divided into two parts, 400 people with disabilities and 600 orphans. Contracts for all the three groups have already been signed and the training has started for all of them.

Contract with BWCCI has been signed and training has started since 3 January 2021 with 2,650 female trainees enrolled, of whom 2,106 have so far been certified and 1,483 are placed in jobs (70.42% of the certified).

SEIP has already started the process of distributing special stipend to T3 graduates.

Output 2:

SDCMU has started to develop competency-based training standards (CSs), with a target of 55 CSs under Tranche 3, out of which 37 have already been finalized through validation. 21 CBLMs have been developed which are now ready for use.

194 Master Trainers (26 females) have already been selected, and training of 450 trainers will start after orientation of the Master Trainers. The first batch of ToT of 450 trainers is expected to start from August 2022.

SEIP is discussing next phases of training of trainers programs with international institutes (e.g., NYPI, ITEES), following on previous programs.

Output 3:

Finance Division approved organogram, recruitment rules, operational manual and TVET financing manual for NHRDF. NHRDF has already completed recruitment of some key officers. It is going to be fully operational by 2022.

Organogram of NSDA has been cleared by Finance Division. NSDA rules have been approved and posted in the website. Recruitment process has started.

Construction work has started for BITAC renovation and for BACI training center. Once the work is completed, the centers will be used for training delivery.

Output 4:

FinMan modules has been completed for improved financial management across training providers. Training and capacity development will be provided on the use of FinMan for relevant finance officers in training centers.

TMS system audit has been completed and further improvement is in process.

All consultants will be selected using ADB's Guidelines on the Use of Consultants (2013, as amended from time to time) and will be subject to ADB's prior review. ADB's member country procurement eligibility restrictions will apply.

Goods and civil works will be procured in accordance with ADB's Procurement Guidelines (2015, as amended from time to time). Goods valued at $2 million or more and works valued at $15 million or more will be procured through international competitive bidding method using ADB's standard bidding documents and will be subject to prior review by ADB. Goods and civil works packages with estimated value below the international competitive bidding threshold mentioned above will be procured using the national competitive bidding method, in accordance with the government's Public Procurement Act (2006, and subsequent amendments) and Public Procurement Rules (2008, and subsequent amendments) subject to modifications agreed between the government and ADB as set out in the FAM and procurement plan. For efficiency and economy, small civil works can be grouped together into larger bid packages, wherever feasible.

The existing implementing partners from Tranches 1 and 2 - 13 industry associations, BB-SME, and PKSF will be continuously be engaged through SSS to deliver the ongoing training courses, along with new courses. The same training grants contracts developed in Tranche 1 will be used with the updated business plan template for consistency across the implementing partners. The draft training grants contracts along with the business plan will be submitted to ADB for review and endorsement.