Massive Tk3,800cr youth employment scheme begins next FY

About 9 lakh less-educated and unemployed youths are expected to be engaged in the mainstream economy in the next five years under a project that looks to reap demographic dividends through extensive skills training and employment support.

In the first phase, people aged 15-29 who completed primary education will be brought under the scheme, with 70% of beneficiaries being women, according to project documents.

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports sent the Development Project Proposal of the "Economic Acceleration and Resilience for NEET (Earn)" project to the Planning Commission, with an estimated cost of Tk3,800 crore.

The World Bank has already given preliminary consent to provide $354 million (approx Tk3,675 crore) in soft loans to implement the project beginning next fiscal year, officials at the finance ministry's Economic Relations Division said.

"The Planning Commission will hold a meeting of the Project Evaluation Committee on 15 March to evaluate the proposal. Final negotiations with the lender will begin following the recommendation from the meeting before placing the proposal before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council [Ecnec]," said Dr Md Abul Hossain, joint secretary (Development) to the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

He told The Business Standard that a wide range of training will be provided in different areas based on the educational eligibility of the youths (who are termed in the proposal as NEET – Not in Education, Employment or Training) and the demand of the local industry.

Officials of the Planning Commission, however, said the project proposal has no detail about the types and duration of training that will be provided to youths or how much money will be given as grants to make the trainees entrepreneurs.

Mohammad Ashraful Islam, joint chief of the Skyswam Wing at the Planning Commission, told TBS that the Project Evaluation Committee would ask for more detail about some components of the project.

The Department of Youth Development (DYD) is set to implement the project by June 2028, according to high officials of the DYD.

They said that beneficiaries of the project will be selected from 250 upazilas based on poverty, vulnerability, the number of NEET youths and their potential.

A survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) estimates there are about 37.1 million NEET people in the country, and of them, around 12.6 million – roughly 27% of the country's youth population – are aged between 15 and 29. Female NEET comprises 89.6% of this age group. The number of NEET is 15.93 million for the age group of 18-35 years.

The BBS survey revealed that young people who are neither in employment nor in education or training are at risk of becoming socially excluded. Reducing the number of young people with NEET status is an important concern of the country.

The General Economic Division of the Planning Commission set a target to reduce the rate of NEET youth to 15% by FY2025 and below 5% by FY2031.

The World Bank (WB) prepared a report for the project saying Bangladesh is having a golden age of demographic dividend with a higher rate of the working-age population which will continue until 2038. But a large share of underserved youth, particularly females, hinders Bangladesh from reaping the demographic dividend the country is experiencing. 

"Many NEET youths lack pre-qualification requirements for enrolment in formal vocational training institutes due to dropping out before completing secondary," revealed the WB paper.

Despite multiple initiatives by the government and national and international NGOs, the economic engagement of the NEET youth has remained largely unattended. 

The goals

The first component would cost $115.58 million to enhance access to alternate education and relevant market-oriented skills development opportunities. A subcomponent worth $30.35 million will assist the secondary dropped-out NEET youths to reach the skills ladder.

The second component with an estimated cost of $121.53 million is designed to promote support for wage and self-employment through connecting the beneficiaries with employers, post-training wage employment and entrepreneurship support including strengthening the Department of Youth Development's seed financing mechanism, technical assistance, post-training specialisation and employment support.

The third component will be for promoting an enabling environment for NEET youths through community strengthening, engagement and ownership, awareness raising and community engagement to promote positive social norms and career counselling support.

Around $104.08 million will be spent on enhancing institutional capacity and project management under the fourth component.

The beneficiaries

The DPP documents revealed that over six lakh NEET youths will receive skills training directly from the project and another 0.2 million, who were previously trained in skills, will get enterprise development support.

Besides allocating stipends, education facilities will be arranged at Bangladesh Open University for at least one lakh students who have dropped out of education due to Covid-19 under the project. 

The project will create a direct employment opportunity for over 50,000 people mostly from rural areas, said MA Akher, director (Planning) of the Department of Youth Development.

He also said about 16,000-18,000 Village Level Training Centres (VLTC) will be operated contemporarily in several areas of the country.

Is the DYD capable of handling the project?

The Department of Youth Development (DYD) is implementing four projects under the Annual Development Programme (ADP), while the largest one is comprehensive technology-based integrated resource management for poverty alleviation (3rd phase), with an estimated cost of Tk209 crore.

Experts and economists expressed concern over the capacity of the DYD to handle another relatively large project.

DYD Director MA Akher told TBS that the DYD is one of few institutions of the government having offices at the upazila level with at least seven officials at each station.

"I see no challenges in implementing the project. It is a fact that we spend around Tk100 crore a year. Now, we have to spend Tk700 crore," he said.

Professor Dr Sayema Haque Bidisha, research director at the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (Sanem) told TBS, "A large number of NEET youths are the main obstacle to achieving benefit from the demographic dividends. Skills-related training is required to bring them into the mainstream of the economy. But the modality of training, curriculum, and standard of the trainers should be ensured prior to the approval of the project."