The government is working on completing the construction of a technical school and college (TSC) in each of 100 upazilas of the country at the end of this year, to generate more skilled manpower in technical fields.
These TSCs will be built under an ongoing project named ‘Establishment of 100 TSCs in Upazila’ and undertaken by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) in 2014.
Later, it was approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) in 2016.
Since then, DTE, the concerned authority under the Technical and Madrasa Education Department (TMED), has started building these technical institutions with a vision to create facilities for introduction of one technical subject from class VI to class VIII, SSC (vocational) and short training courses, for expanding vocational education & training. This TSC project is worth Tk 2,335 crore till the current deadline of December 2021.
According to Dr Md Shirajul Islam, the Director for this TSC project, the construction of 35 schools and colleges has already been completed while they are making an effort to complete 90% within this year, the current deadline.
In December last year, DTE completed the construction of 25 schools in several districts, including Pabna and Natore. Later, this year, 10 more schools have got into the list so far. Most of these are awaiting the schooling to begin, but are clogged due to the pandemic.
“We are leaving no stone unturned to complete all the construction work on time even though the work has been disrupted due to Corona since last year,” Dr Md Shirajul Islam told Bangladesh Post.
“If the pandemic situation does not improve, the deadline of this project may be extended,” he added.
However, it took a while to start building the TSCs and the deadline is near, six months ahead. DTE says there are many difficulties before the actual work begins. So, it usually takes longer than the predetermined period.
“It took us longer to start the field work because of the delay in land acquisition. But we are committed to going on in full swing,” the Director (Planning and Development) of DTE Md Jahangir Alam told Bangladesh Post.
The government is committed to transforming the young people as a productive skilled workforce for the local and overseas job market, ahead of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’.
It has set a target to make technical education 20 percent by 2020, 30 percent in 2030 and 50 percent in 2041 of the total education. To this end, setting up of one technical school and college (TSC) in 100 upazilas, one women's polytechnic institute in four divisional cities (Sylhet, Barisal, Mymensingh, Rangpur), one polytechnic institute in 23 districts and four engineering colleges in four divisions (Chattogram, Khulna, Rajshahi, Rangpur) project is underway.
In addition, DTE has recently undertaken a project to set up 329 government technical schools and colleges across the country. If the project is implemented, each upazila of the country will have a technical school or college.
Besides, in the budget for the fiscal year 2020-21, an allocation of Tk 9,154 crore has been sought for TMED of the Ministry of Education, which is Tk 809 crore more than that in the previous fiscal year.
In his budget speech on Madrasa and Technical Education, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said, “The government is continuing its efforts to develop quality technical and vocational education. We are taking steps to mainstream technical education in preparation for the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’. At the same time, we are expanding the scope of quality technical education with the aim of creating skilled manpower suitable for the domestic and international labor market.”