{"id":97459,"date":"2020-01-07T18:09:22","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T01:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=97459"},"modified":"2020-01-07T18:09:22","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T01:09:22","slug":"lessons-from-the-youth-self-employment-programme-of-bangladesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/07\/lessons-from-the-youth-self-employment-programme-of-bangladesh\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from The Youth Self Employment Programme of Bangladesh"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Over twenty percent of young people in the World, have failed to\nfind a due place in the economic ladder and have become drop offs of the\neducation and development system. Definite action to equip them to become\nentrepreneurs has to get priority. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every country has a plethora of job skills training programmes,\nbut the countries provide only skills training and expect the trained\nyouth to either find suitable employment or to become entrepreneurs.\nFinding suitable employment to utilize their skills is a difficult task because\nthe International Monetary Fund has already imposed its Structural Adjustment\nProgramme on almost all Third World countries with the result that these\ncountries have been directed to follow a set of policies \u2013 to allow\nunrestricted imports and are banned from implementing any government programmes\nthat attend to create commercial undertakings. This means that though skills\ntraining can be provided the Governments cannot either restrict imports of\nitems that can be made locally or set up programmes where the skills trained\nyouth will be helped to establish manufacturing units that make items for local\nconsumption or export. The IMF\u2019s Structural Adjustment Programme also imposes a\nhigh interest rate policy, which means that any entrepreneur has to obtain\nfunds at a for bidding high interest at over twenty percent to establish any\nindustry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is that the vast majority of the skills trained youth\ncontinue to be unemployed and become consumers, receivers of welfare grants\nrather than become contributors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this context, the achievement of the Youth Self Employment Programme\nof Bangladesh comes of great importance in that it is the only development\nprogramme that can claim success in guiding millions of youths to become self\nemployed on a commercially viable basis. It is easily the only youth employment\nprogramme that has achieved world status within the short space of three\ndecades. It is a programme that has left its imprint on the sands of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No feasibility reports were written to get this programme\napproved. The approval came in a flash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Bangladesh when the new Military Government of General\nErshard took over the country in 1982, the Ministry of Youth Development was\nproviding skills training to 40,000 youths annually but the vast majority of\nthem failed to find employment and continued to be unemployed for life. I\nhappened to be the Commonwealth Fund Advisor to the Ministry on Youth\nDevelopment and the new Hon. Minister for Labour and Manpower, Air Vice\nMarshall Aminul Islam at a Conference held to evaluate youth development\nprogrammes, ordered me,:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 What can you contribute for Bangladesh\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would suggest that you approve a self employment\nprogramme to supplement the skills training programmes that are being\nimplemented by the Ministry of Youth Development, where the lecturers who train\nthe youths in skills will in addition, also guide the youths to establish\nenterprises to manufacture items for sale and become self employed\nentrepreneurs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Secretary to the Treasury, the highest official in the\ncountry who was present replied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Self-Employment is not a task that can be done. The\nInternational Labor Organization (ILO) with all their unlimited resources have\njust miserably failed to establish a self-employment programme at Tangail in\nBangladesh. They laboured for three years and brought experts from all over and\nfailed. It was a great loss \u2013 a massive expenditure and this Government is not\ngoing to waste any more funds again. Self-Employment is not a task that can be\ndone. That was the conclusion of the ILO and they are the experts of\ninternational standing\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I replied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the ILO failed, I can establish a Self Employment\nProgramme. I hold the experience of establishing self-employment projects in\nSri Lanka for eighteen years and also hold the Ph.D in Agricultural Economics\nand Non Formal Education from Michigan State University. I am confident of\nsuccess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The Secretary to the\nTreasury the highest official in Bangladesh laughed loud at my attempt to make\nentrepreneurs out of school drop outs- the category from which the Department\nof Youth Development found youths for skills training. Secretaries of a few\nother Ministries joined him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 I argued that though the\nILO failed I would succeed. The Secretary to the Treasury was adamant that\nsuch a programme would never succeed, but I quoted instances where I had established successful\nemployment projects providing incomes to youths while simultaneously producing\nwhat the country imported. The battle went on for an easy two full hours The\nHon. Minister was listening in silence till his patience was exhausted. \nThe Minister finally ordered us to shut up. He asked for any Government\ntraining programmes that guided youths to become entrepreneurs. The Secretary\nto the Treasury replied None\u201d. Then the Minister asked for the number of\nyouths that failed to get into higher education as well as finding a suitable\njob- the youths that will be scraping the barrel for life, unemployed. The\nSecretary answered that it was in the millions, every year The Hon Minister\nwithout any hesitation ordered that I should establish a self employment\nprogramme to create entrepreneurs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Secretary to the Treasury stumped, stating\u201a  that\nthere will be no  funds to establish a self employment programme, to which\nI replied that we will find savings within the  approved budgets  for\nthe skills training of the youths and re deploy staff as necessary. The \nHon Minister  approved my suggestion.. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We started planning work that night itself. The next morning I\nwas a addressing trainee at the training centers and also training our\nLecturers and Youth Officers on how the programme should be done. The officers\nwho had till then done traditional youth development work were trained in\nconcepts of economics. All Training Institutes were immediately altered to\nTraining Cum Extension Institutes where the youths in training were to be\nguided to become self-employed. Overnight we established a countrywide special\nextension service for the lecturers to go out on inspections and help the\nyouths who faced problems.  The youths were guided to draft their own\nprojects to become self employed, starting small farms even with a few cows or\nchicks. Dresses were sewn using the machines at the training centers that were\nkept open after work till ten at night.  The method was to intensively\nguide the trainees in the management of their enterprises. Every action from\nthe planning of their projects, to the purchase of raw materials, the chicks,\nthe feed, the process of manufacture, the process of the growth and sale of\ncattle, the making of garments and their sale was all monitored on a non formal\neducation basis where the youths were trained to look at the advantages and\ndisadvantages of each course of action and act on their own. They were\nmonitored closely and helped when they failed. . The trainees were taught basic\neconomics related to their ventures\u201a The training included understanding\nthe free market economy and the youths were guided to think, understand and\nincrease their ability and capacity in the process. This was non-formal\neducation in action. The achievement was within the village setting where the\nprojects became family concerns with brothers and sisters becoming involved. On\nour Visits, Training sessions were provided impromptu where everyone could\nparticipate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effort was to make a youth movement to make youths establish\nventures and guide them till they are income bearing equal to the earnings of a\nclerical officer in the Public Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Programme began at the end of March 1982 with a few\ntrainees and was expanded to 2000 by October 1983. By the time I left\nBangladesh at the end of October 1983- in sixteen months my team was\nguiding 2000 youths.  The team comprised the Secretary, the Joint\nSecretary of the Ministry with a few hundred staff of Directors, Deputy\nDirectors of Youth, Director for Livestock and Poultry, Directors of the 3\nResidential Training Centers in Livestock & Poultry, Lecturers in Training\nInstitutes- all of whom were taught the essentials of economics firstly to be\nable to analyse the economy of Bangladesh and to arrive at areas of economic\nactivity where self employment production would be an asset to the country.\nThey were also taught methods of imparting instructions in a manner that would\nevoke the active participation of the trainees and enable them to think and\nmake their own decisions. This included national and regional planning culled\ndown to the village level., where the self employment units were established. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got down to work in earnest.. The officers were patriotic to\nthe extreme. It was long hours every day for months Daily circuits in Toyota\nHiace bone shakers- leaving early morning to return whenever. The officials\nresponded ably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In an evaluation conducted in March 1983, eleven months\nfrom the commencement it was found that of the youths that commenced by May\n1982, 283 youths had established  their own commercial ventures, with\nstocks of flocks and head of cattle  valued at Tk.911,630.00.  It was\nbuilding up stocks, buying chicks and ducklings and seeing them grow. As much\nas 223 of them had reached a net income of TK 369.00 a month. Of them 83 earned\nover Tk. 500.00 a month. In the  Jamalpur District, in disciplines like\ndress making, fisheries, retail sales, electrical goods repairing workshops,\nwelding, etc. 73 youths were involved, earning an average net income of Tk\n445.00 a month with 20 of them earning net incomes of Tk. 500.00 or over:\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that time Tk. 500.00 a month was the salary drawn by a\nClerical Officer in the Government Service. Getting the youths to reach a net\nincome of Tk. 500.00 was our aim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an Evaluation done in August 1983, 16 months from\ncommencement  the Report documented:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Programme of Excellence in every respect unfolds in the\nresults documented. .Of  500 unemployed youths who joined the programme in\nthe early months,   479 are earning  an average net income \nof Tk 596.00 in August 1983, 8 to 12 months after they commenced their\ncommercial ventures, 55 of them earn over Tk. 1000.00 a month and 253\nearn  over Tk 500.00<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August 1983, barely 16 months from the commencement, the\nachievement was hailed by the two Secretaries of the Ministry of Labour and\nManpower; In their words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Karunaratne\u2019s significant contribution has been in the\nfield of self employment to the drop-out youths. This programme was not only\ndesigned but also guided by him. This activity, which was initially launched as\na pilot experimental project, has been a great success and has now being\nadopted as a fill-fledged Programme. The Government of Bangladesh has been\nsuccessful in providing meaningful employment to a large number of youths on\nthis Programme\u201d . (Asafuddowlah)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Karunaratne\u2019s role as the formulator of the program has\nbeen particularly commendable. It was mainly through his dedication and hard\nwork that the pilot project has now been formally accepted as one of the most\nimportant development projects.\u201d (Ayubur Rahaman)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Instead of traditional youth work, the aims of the Ministry of\nYouth had been altered to facilitate the unemployed youth for gainful\nemployment\/self employment, providing vocational\/skills development training\nand micro credit support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To involve the youth in the mainstream of national development\nprocesses\u201d (www.dyd.gov.bd\/nyp_activities.php<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The above achievement of the Youth Self Employment Programme\nstands great in comparison to what was achieved by the ILO Project in Tangail\nin the earlier three years, where the number of entrepreneurs was only 626,\nwhere Tk. 1.38 million was disbursed of which only Tk. .61 million was\nrecovered. The best cases document people owning one milk cow or fattening one\nhead of cattle for sale. Many of the 626 people had dropped off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 By August 1983, 16 months after commencement The\nDepartment of Youth Development  were training  2000 youths. The\nProgramme was expanded apace to involve 7000 youths by 1987, to 16,000 by 1992\nand to 160,000 a year from 1997. In 1982 we had only 3 Residential\nTraining Centers. This was increased to 64 by 1997.  In  2011\nFebruary The Government of Bangladesh reported to the 34 th Session of the\nGoverning Council of IFAD(FAO)  that this programme had guided as much as\ntwo million youths to be self employed\u201a  on  a commercially viable\nbasis.(Statement by Bangladesh to the 34 th Session of the Governing Council of\nIFAD(FAO), dated19\/02\/2011)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My task was also to train the officers to carry on the programme\nafter my\u201a  two year period of service ended.\u201a  True to a man\nBangladeshi officers carried on the ardous task and\u201a   today 160,000\nyouths are being guided annually.. A full Department of Youth Development now\ndevotes 95% of their time to training and guiding youths to become self\nemployed..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every country boasts of skills training programmes where youths\nare trained in the thousands but none provide training to guide the trained to\nbecome entrepreneurs- the task that was successfully done in this Youth Self\nEmployment Programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would behove every Government to decide that all\nskills training programmes should include guidance to enable the youths in\ntraining to establish enterprises of their own and become entrepreneurs. This\ncan be achieved with little extra cost as the staff that train youths in skills\nwill also be guiding them to become self employed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another important fact is that for the first few years, no new\nfunds were provided. Savings were found within the skills training programme\nbudgets for holding training workshops to create self employment..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having a live successful employment creation programme to follow\nand for guidance is a great asset to any country that wishes to commence\nactivity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The intrinsic success of the Youth Self Employment programme of\nBangladesh offers hope for any country that hopes to convert their unemployed\nyouth to become entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire world yearns for that development today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D. Michigan State University\u201a <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commonwealth Fund Advisor to the Ministry of Labour and\nManpower, the Government of Bangladesh(1981-1983)  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne Over twenty percent of young people in the World, have failed to find a due place in the economic ladder and have become drop offs of the education and development system. Definite action to equip them to become entrepreneurs has to get priority. . Every country has a plethora of job skills […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}