Final round of Bangabandhu National Skills Competition on 29-30 Dec

The final round of the Bangabandhu National Skills Competition will be held on 29-30 December at four venues in Dhaka. Sixty-six winners from the divisional level will take part in the event organised by the National Skills Development Authority (NSDA).

Dulal Krishna Saha, executive chairman, NSDA, announced the date of the final round at the unveiling of the competition's logo at a press conference in Biniyog Bhaban in the capital's Agargaon on Sunday.

After a six-month grooming session, the winners will take part in a global skills competition scheduled for next year's October in Shanghai.

With the theme "Master Skills, Change the World," the "World Skills Shanghai 2022" will be held from 12-17 October.

At the conference, Dulal Krishna Saha said 13 winners from 13 fields will be sent to the competition in Shanghai, China.

Highlighting that 5-7 lakh foreigners were working in Bangladesh's readymade garment sector taking the jobs of the country's youth who lack skills, Krishna Saha said the people of the country have yet to understand the importance of technical skills.

Awareness programmes are underway to motivate people to acquire skills, he added.

He said 228 training institutes had already been registered and would provide training in line with the national curriculum. At the end of  training, participants will receive certificates.

"We are working to create skilled manpower for the domestic and international labour markets," Krishna Saha added.

Speaking at the conference on behalf of KSRM Steel Plant Limited -- sponsor of the Bangabandhu National Skills Competition -- General Manager (Market Research and Development) of the company, Col (retd) Md Ashfaqul Islam said, "We hire skilled workers even though we have to pay them more. We have more than 200,000 trained staff."

NSDA Joint Secretary (administration and finance) Nurul Amin and Joint Secretary and Member (administration and finance) Md Ziauddin also spoke on the occasion.

Earlier this year, the NSDA undertook the initiative to select participants to compete at the Shanghai event.

Divisional level competitions were arranged across the country on 30 October and 66 candidates were selected for the final round.

Some 1,707 candidates from eight divisions -- Dhaka, Chattogram, Khulna, Rajshahi, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Rangpur and Barishal -- sat for examinations in 13 trade fields.

The 13 fields are: painting and decorating, plastering and drywall systems, fashion technology, print media technology, IT network system administration, web technologies, cloud computing, cyber security, welding, cooking, restaurant services, patisserie and confectionery, and bakery.

The National Hotel and Tourism Training Institute, Bangladesh Korea Technical Training Center, Daffodil International Academy Bangladesh, and Dhaka Polytechnic Institute, have been selected as the venues for the Bangabandhu National Skills Competition 2021.