By Garvin Karunaratne

It has so happened that in Sri Lanka, instead of creating employment for the youth we have had the unfortunate experience of being forced to gun down the youth twice. In the April 1971 uprising at least ten thousand and in the late Eighties some Seventy or Eighty thousand had to be silenced.

The youth of a country, especially the youth who due to either the lack of qualification or due to the lack of employment opportunity have to be confined to attend to a menial job and have to scrape the barrel for life, needs to be taken care of. They deserve to be trained and guided to become a national asset.

In this context, the achievement of the Youth Self Employment Programme of Bangladesh comes of great importance in that it is the only  development programme that can claim success in guiding millions of drop out youths to become self employed on a commercially viable basis. It is easily the only youth employment programme that has achieved world status within the short space of three decades. It is a programme that has left its imprint on the sands of time.

In  Bangladesh when the new Military Government of General Ershard took over the country in 1982, the Ministry of Youth Development was providing skills training to 40,000 youths annually but the vast majority of them failed to find employment and continued to be unemployed for life. I happened to be the Commonwealth Fund Advisor to the Ministry on Youth Development and the new Hon. Minister for Labour and Manpower, Air Vice Marshall Aminul Islam at a Conference held to evaluate youth development programmes, ordered me,:

 What can you contribute to Bangladesh”?

I would suggest that you approve a self-employment programme to supplement the skills training programmes  that are being implemented by the Ministry of Youth Development, where the lecturers who train the youths in skills will,  in addition, also guide the youths to establish enterprises to manufacture items for sale and become self-employed entrepreneurs.”

The Secretary to the Treasury, the highest official in the country who was present vehemently objected.

Self Employment is not something that can be established. The International Labor Organization (ILO) with all their unlimited resources have just miserably failed to establish a self employment programme at Tangail in Bangladesh. They laboured for three years and brought experts from all over the world and failed. It was a massive loss and this Government is not going to waste any more funds again. Self Employment is not a task that can be done. That was the conclusion of the ILO and they are the only experts of international standing”

I replied:

Though the ILO failed,  I can establish a Self Employment Programme. I hold the experience of establishing self employment units in Sri Lanka for eighteen years and also hold the Ph.D in Agricultural Economics and Non Formal Education from Michigan State University. I am a trained expert not only in agricultural economics but also in community development and non formal education.”

. The Secretary to the Treasury the highest official in Bangladesh laughed loud at my attempt to make entrepreneurs out of school drop outs- the category from which the Department of Youth Development found youths for skills training. 

.. I argued that though the ILO failed I would succeed. The Secretary to the Treasury  was adamant that such a programme would never succeed, but I quoted instances where I had established  successful employment projects providing incomes to youths while simultaneously producing what the country imported.. He laughed at my telling that I had successfully guided unemployed youths to understand basic economic principles to become entrepreneurs by having a few cattle, a few dozen hens or making an item for sale. I explained that it was an easy task to provide training to the unemployed and to also guide them to open up small scale enterprises and guide them till they become successful entrepreneurs-  what  I had done again and again in Sri Lanka over eighteen years. I detailed how I would be guiding the youths to  master the art of making the right decisions and for them to develop their ability and capacity to think and act to become successful entrepreneurs. The battle went on for an easy two full hours.  The Hon Minister was listening in silence till his patience was exhausted.

 The Minister finally ordered us to shut up. He was the third in command in the military government and I was worried thick. The Secretary to the Treasury was the highest official in the land and even Secretaries of Ministries would never even dream of arguing with him. Instead of questioning us further, the Minister  asked for any  Government training programmes that guided youths to become entrepreneurs. The Secretary to the Treasury replied None”. Then the Minister asked for the  number of youths being trained in all vocational training programmes in the country..  He carefully totaled the figures of youths that were being trained.  Then the Minister asked for the number of school leavers in a year who would have not fed into the higher echelons of learning and also not finding a job and be relegated  to be under employed scraping the barrel for life. The answer for the number of youths scraping the barrel for life annually was in the millions while the number of youths under training in vocations was in the thousands. Without any hesitation, the Hon Minister ordered that I should establish a self employment programme.

The Secretary to the Treasury stumped,  stating‚  that there will be no  funds to establish a self employment programme, to which I replied that we will find savings within the  approved budgets  for the skills training of the youths and re deploy staff as necessary. The  Hon Minister  approved my suggestion.. .

We started planning work that night itself. The next morning I was addressing trainees at the training centers and also training our Lecturers and Youth Officers on how the programme should be done. The officers who had till then done traditional youth development work were trained in concepts of economics. All Training Institutes were immediately altered to Training Cum Extension Institutes where the youths in training were to be guided to become self employed. Overnight we established a countrywide special extension service for the lecturers to go out on inspections and help the youths who faced problems when they commenced enterprises.  The youths were guided to draft their own projects to become self employed, starting small farms even with a few cows or chicks. Dresses were sewn using the machines at the training centers that were kept open after work till ten at night.  The method was to intensively guide the trainees in the management of their enterprises. Every action from the planning of their projects, to the purchase of raw materials, the chicks, the feed, the process of manufacture, the process of the growth and sale of cattle, the making of garments and their sale was all monitored on a non formal education  basis where the youths were trained to look at the advantages and disadvantages of each course of action and act on their own. They were monitored closely and helped when they failed. . The trainees were taught basic economics related to their ventures‚  The training included understanding the free market economy and the youths were guided to think, understand and increase their ability and capacity in the process. This was non formal education in action. The achievement was within the village setting where the projects became family concerns with brothers and sisters becoming involved. On our Visits, Training sessions were provided impromptu where everyone could participate. Short training courses were provided as and when necessary. The effort was to make a youth movement to make youths establish enterprises and guide them till they are income bearing equal to the earnings of a clerical officer in the Public Service.

This Programme began at the beginning of April 1982 with a few trainees and was expanded to 2000 by October 1983. By the time I left Bangladesh at the end of October  1983- in  nineteen months my team was guiding 2000 youths.  The team comprised the Secretary, the Joint Secretary of the Ministry with a few hundred staff of Directors, Deputy Directors of Youth, Director for Livestock and Poultry , Directors of the 3 Residential Training Centers in Livestock & Poultry, Lecturers in Training Institutes- all of whom were taught the essentials of economics firstly to be able to analyse the economy of Bangladesh and to arrive at areas of economic activity where self employment production would be an asset.to the country This included national and regional planning culled down to the village level., where the self employment units were established.. They were also taught methods of imparting instructions in a manner that would evoke the active participation of the trainees and enable them to think and make their own decisions, developing their ability and capacity in the process.

We got down to work in earnest.. The officers were patriotic to the extreme. It was long hours every day for months.  Daily circuits in Toyota Hiace bone shakers- leaving early morning to return whenever. The officials responded to a man, patriotic to the extreme, working long hours..

 In an evaluation conducted in March 1983, eleven months from the commencement it was found that of the youths that commenced by May 1982,   283 youths had established  their own commercial ventures, with stocks of flocks and head of cattle  valued at Tk.911,630.00.  It was building up stocks, buying chicks and ducklings and seeing them grow. As much as 223 of them had reached a net income of TK 369.00 a month. Of them 83 earned over Tk. 500.00 a month. In the  Jamalpur District, in disciplines like dress making, fisheries, retail sales, electrical goods repairing workshops, welding, etc. 73 youths were involved, earning an average net income of Tk 445.00 a month with 20 of them earning net incomes of Tk. 500.00 or over:”

At that time Tk. 500.00 a month was the salary drawn by a Clerical Officer in the Government Service. Getting the youths to reach a net income of Tk. 500.00 a month was our aim.

In an Evaluation done in August 1983, 16 months since commencement  the Evaluation Report states:

A Programme of Excellence in every respect  unfolds in the results documented. .Of  500 unemployed youths who joined the programme in the early months,   479 are earning  an average net income  of Tk 596.00 in August 1983, 8 to 12 months after they commenced their commercial ventures, 55 of them earn over Tk. 1000.00 a month and 253 earn  over Tk 500.00.”

In August 1983, barely 16 months since the commencement, the achievement was hailed by the two Secretaries of the Ministry of Labour and Manpower; In their words:

Dr.Karunaratne’s significant contribution has been in the field of self employment to the drop-out youths. This programme was not only designed but also guided by him. This activity which was initially launched as a pilot experimental project has been a great success and has now being adopted as a fill-fledged Programme. The Government of Bangladesh..has been successful in providing meaningful employment to a large number of youths on this Programme” .(Asafuddowlah)

Dr. Karunaratne’s role as the formulator of the program has been particularly commendable. It was mainly through his dedication and hard work that the pilot project has now been formally accepted as one of the most important development projects. (Ayubur Rahaman)

The YSEP has stood the test of time for over three decades (1982-2019) The Five Year Plan of 1997-2002 devotes 8 pages to this program. This is easily the premier employment creation program that one can find in the world today. All other programs involve training and apprenticeship only and never include the tasks of motivating youths, involving them in non-formal education endeavor to develop their abilities and capacities, through technical guidance and management advice provided as they work on their projects aimed at their  becoming commercially viable, which are the cornerstones on which this programme  has been based.

Instead of traditional youth work, the aims of the Ministry of Youth had been altered: 

To facilitate the unemployed youth for gainful employment/self employment, providing vocational/skills development training and micro credit support.”.

To involve the youth in the mainstream of national development processes” (www.dyd.gov.bd/nyp_activities.php)

No subsidies of any sort were provided. What was provided was intensive training in residential settings, with payment of a meager monthly stipend. In many cases the youths invested their stipend to purchase chicks. They created capital by rearing chicks to become hens. Later, to the promising youths loans were arranged and carefully utilized under  close supervision. Short term training was provided whenever needed.

The above achievement of the Youth Self Employment Programme stands great in comparison to what was achieved by the ILO Project in Tangail in the earlier three years, where the number of entrepreneurs was only 626, where Tk. 1.38 million was disbursed of which only Tk. .61 million was recovered.  The best cases document people owning one milk cow or fattening one head of cattle for sale. Many of the 626 people had dropped off. The ILO had to eat humble pie, declare failure and erase the attempt from their books.

 By  August 1983, 16 months after commencement  The Department of Youth Development  was training  2000 youths. The Programme was expanded apace to involve 7000 youths by 1987, to 16,000 by 1992 and to 160,000 a year  from 1997. In 1982 we had only 3 Residential Training Centers. This was increased to 64 by 1997.

 In  2011 February  The Government of Bangladesh reported to the 34 th Session of the Governing Council of IFAD(FAO), one of the funders,   that this programme had guided as much as two million youths to be self employed‚  on  a commercially viable basis.(Statement by Bangladesh to the 34 th Session of the Governing Council of IFAD(FAO), dated19/02/2011)

My task was also to train the officers to carry on the programme after my‚  two year period of service ended.‚  True to a man Bangladeshi officers carried on the ardous task and‚   today 160,000 youths are being guided annually.. A full Department of Youth Development now devotes 95% of its time to training and guiding youths to become self employed..

Every country boasts of skills training programmes where youths are trained in the thousands but none provide training to guide the trained to become entrepreneurs- the task that was successfully done in this Youth Self Employment Programme.

It would behove  every Government to  decide that all skills training programmes should include guidance to enable the youths in training to establish enterprises of their own and become entrepreneurs. This can be achieved with little extra cost as the staff that train youths in skills can also be guiding them to become self employed.

Another important fact is that for the first few years, no new funds were provided for this Programme. . Savings were found within the skills training programme budgets for holding training workshops to create self employment..

Having a live successful employment creation programme is a great asset to any country. Guiding the unemployed  to become entrepreneurs, also enriches the economy with  produce to avoid imports..

I have detailed factually how I designed and established the Youth Self Employment Programme, a programme that has come to stay on a permanent basis for over  three decades and also find mention in the Five Year Plans of the country. The Commonwealth Fund tried to get my services  later, but I had to decline as I was employed in a permanent position in Westminster as a Lecturer. 

In actuality I converted a youth development department attending to traditional youth work to attend to economic development, training the youth and finding employment opportunities for them. I had to train the staff of the Department of Youth Development  in economics and methods of communication and educating youths to become commercial entrepreneurs. This is easily the one and only programme of this type in the world.

It may be a good idea for the Task Force to contact the Secretary to the Ministry of Youth Development of Bangladesh, to find veracity  for this unique programme. The officer who will know most is  the former secretary, Mr Muhammed Asafuddowlah, of the Bangladesh Civil Service, who was Additional  Secretary of the Ministry when I designed and established the Programme and who was  later the Secretary to the Ministry of Youth Development twice  and was instrumental in expanding the programme to what it is today.

The intrinsic success of this programme even merits a visit by a leading member of the Task Force to sus and find out how Sri Lanka  can learn  from this programme. 

A similar employment creation programme for the youth of Sri Lanka, if established,  will be a great credit to  the Government of President Gotabhaya and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

I would deem it  a priviledge to provide more details and be of service if called upon.

. Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D. Michigan State University‚ 

Commonwealth Fund Advisor of Youth Development to the Government of Bangladesh(1981-1983) and Government Agent, Matara(1971-1973)

Author of;

How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternative Programs of  Success (Godages)2006
Success in Development-(Godages)2010
Papers on the Economic Development of Sri Lanka-, Godages 2012
How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development,  Kindle/Godages, 2017

May 18, 2020, Colombo, Sri Lankagarvin_karunaratne@hotmail.com