No less than 400 thousand youths, a large portion of which is women, received training in a number of employable skills in the non-agriculture sector from BRAC in last eight years and have found decent employment or started own initiatives.
BRAC officials revealed this information at an event today on Tuesday (23 July 2019) at the BRAC Centre in Dhaka. BRAC organized this event as a part of its celebration of World Youth Skills Day. The program comprised an exhibition of BRAC skills development initiatives, the launch of a publication titled “Star Toolkit: Introducing a Successful Entrepreneurship” and a series of panel discussions.
Faruque Hossain, chairman, National Skills Development Authority, was present as the chief guest at the panel discussion titled “SDG-8: Youth, skills and employment”. Tapan Kumar Ghosh, chairman, Bureau of Non-formal Education, and KAM Morshed, director, BRAC, participated in the discussion among others. Asif Saleh, acting executive director, BRAC, moderated the discussion.
Angela Naumann, first secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian High Commission, Bangladesh, Mashfique Ibne Akbar, private sector development adviser, Department of International Development, British High Commission, Dhaka, Zhigang Li, social sector specialist, Asian Development Bank, Tomoo Hozomi, country representative, UNICEF Bangladesh, participated in another panel discussion on financing of skills development initiatives.
BRAC’s Skill Development Programme began its activities with the STAR project, which has developed a unique model reforming and institutionalizing the ancient tradition of skills training through apprenticeships under a master craftsman.
Under the STAR project, BRAC officials find out skilled people who run their own business. After they go through specially designed training, selected trainees start apprenticeships under them. The trainers receive an honorarium for running the six-monthly course.
BRAC developed this unique model jointly with ILO, UNICEF, Department of Non-Formal Education of Bangladesh government and follows the National Technical and Vocational Quality Framework (NTVQF).
The experts at the panel discussions stressed effective collaboration between the government, donors, non-governmental actors and private sector for expanding the opportunities for employable skills development. They said to achieve SDG targets there is no alternative for skill development.
