Our education system cannot identify actual talents

I think our current education system does not reflect job market demand. If it did, good academic results would guarantee a good career. We are failing to detect true talents with this education system.

In a broader perspective, any education system has two goals – human resource development and screening or separating the good from the bad. The existing education system in Bangladesh is able to attain neither of the goals.

Of late, there has been much talk about the issue in India. They say even though they have failed to develop human resources with their education system to a greater extent, they have been able to ensure proper screening. As a result, we can see a lot of Indian CEOs in the USA. However, [in Bangladesh] we are encountering a huge mismatch in this regard.

We need to change our education system so that we can find the skilled ones. We have to work on that. We have to come out of the education system that is based on learning by rote.

We have to know the needs of our industry. There must be an integration between the education system and the industry. If the market works properly, it will determine what types of education we need. When we see that the universities are focusing on BBA, we understand what is in the market.

We also need humanities education, but the question is – are we doing it properly?

Kazi Iqbal is the senior research fellow at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies