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Resourcing the country's future

MAMUN RASHID
***Someone has to bell the cat and it has to start right at the top. The lawmakers of the country who have the widest reach can make the change if they will it to change. Instead of playing the blame game that they so very often indulge in, they can combine forces to concentrate on the real issues. They seem to have the same agenda -- make Bangladesh prosperous, then where and why the disconnect? When will we learn to be graceful in politics for the greater benefit of the country?***
BUILDING a nation can be a rather Herculean task. Ask the Americans who built a wilderness into the most powerful nation on earth. Or the Japanese who built their country to make it a rags to riches story within just a few decades. It takes courage and effort on the part of the individuals residing in the country. A country may be endowed with Mother Nature's abundant resources, but that is all redundant if the real resources fail to perform -- human resources. Since the dawn of our elastic civilisation, it is people who have carried it forward and given it the shape that it has taken today. And it is people who will continue to shape it tomorrow.
Bangladesh, as battle ridden as it is, courtesy of being born into the club of Least Developed Nations, has not been directing enough attention to the human resource factor. We fail and almost blindly refuse to see and acknowledge any real achievements, preferring to wallow in the murky waters of self-pity rather than doing something about it. In this process we fail to notice the achievements of the few individuals who are really pushing this country forward. As much as we may like to acknowledge it or not, the country has a steady GDP growth of over 5 percent for the last decade. We have increased presence in the global arena and our voice is heard loud and clear in all global forums. In spite of all odds, the bitter rivalry between the two opposition parties, and increasing crime, the economy is growing, business houses are making more profits year on year, and new international business houses are sniffing around or have already established their presence in the country. Still why the fear, why the confusion? Why not faster?
Bangladeshis have an uncanny habit of being proud of only the past. We are proud to state we are this or that because of events that we are not even responsible for. My point is yes we were all that courtesy thinking men of that time, but what are we today? Has our nation stopped giving birth to such great individuals thereafter? What can we claim as pride for today? Is there among us even a few outstanding men or women from whom children of today can take inspiration tomorrow? It's a nation that is only 33 years old. The hangover of the joy of liberation should be there with promises of even better tomorrow. By today we should have been able to reflect upon those times as the foundations of today's intellectual and economic superiority. The heroes of those times are now in the twilight years of service. And increasingly a dearth is noticeable of leaders for the continuity of the march towards progression. In spite of dictatorship under which democracy suffered and greedy politicians, we have now reached a position where expansion and growth is inevitable courtesy of the initiated few. The need for a robust destination model stemming from micro culminating into macro management and appropriate resource planning cannot be underestimated to reach economic emancipation. To integrate with the global market we need individuals in sync with the global language of progress. All vehicles of economic advancement including business houses, government institutions, and educational institutes are crying hoarse about the shortage of real talent pool in the country. Simultaneously there is increased unemployment rate in spite of the hundreds of thousands of 'graduates' we have from schools, colleges, and universities. There seems to be an acute mismatch between the talent that is needed by the growth engines and the talent minted out of the education system of our country.
We like to state that we follow an education system introduced by the British. But that antediluvian system isn't worth a dime for all that the world cares now. Topics taught are so outdated and there really hasn't been any sincere concentration on the quality of education imparted to the students. Ensuring universal education is not enough if it doesn't lead to actual knowledge accumulation and application. How many of our so called university taught students can actually stand the challenge of an Indian student, let alone a developed nation one? Ask yourself -- and it's not even the poor fellow's fault that his teacher isn't teaching him the right things. Our education is so memory based; little importance or credit is given to innovative and practical learning. Real knowledge will not be a reality if this is not done away with. It starts from the day a child walks into his first class in playschool. Memorising based learning can teach one to be only a follower, not an innovator. If the world has realized that, why don't we?
Children of the baby boomers are today running the world. Yet our country is still run by retired personnel called back into service or by near-retired personnel. Until we can bring about sweeping reforms into our education system, we can continue looking for a plethora of other means, but these will bear little fruit. Syllabuses need to be vamped up and teachers need to incorporate global standards in what they teach to the students. One IBA is not enough. We need a multiplicity of such educational institutes that can disseminate the best of knowledge. Look at what the IITs and IIMs have done for India. Today no one can speak of excellence in engineering knowledge or management knowledge without mentioning these institutes. And contrary to the proponents of privatisation, these are all state run, as are higher educational institutes in most parts of the world. The government gives utmost importance to these institutes. In Europe, many countries offer higher education for free, ensuring continuity in intellectual think tanks.
In 1991 India was literally a gone case. With reserves just about one billion dollars, the country would have collapsed. From there, India today is a mighty force. The robustness of the economy is enviable. And it's not a miracle that saved them. It's the sheer willpower, the determination, and participation of people from all ranks that has placed them where they are. They built schools that taught relevant topics, nurtured talent and built enough Indianness in the migrating citizens to become ambassadors of their country. Today, NRIs as a group pump in billions of dollars into their motherland's economy. India has given the world Laxmi Mittal, Paul Swaraj, Sabeer Bhatia, Azim Premji, Victor Menezes, Narayanmurthy, all of Indian origin. Where are we?
Pakistan, leaving aside the obvious bitterness of the past, is a country we often liken our economy to. But they had a BCCI network in more than 70 countries, harnessing Pakistani talent and letting the world know they have it. Can we imagine any of our local banks be they nationalised or private, reaching so far? Do we have the talent to represent us in such a way? Look at Dr. Moyeen Qureshi of the World Bank or Shaukat Aziz from Citibank, both fostering Pakistani talent to pull into their country if the need ever arises. How do we fare against this comparison?
Someone has to bell the cat and it has to start right at the top. The lawmakers of the country who have the widest reach can make the change if they will it to change. Instead of playing the blame game that they so very often indulge in, they can combine forces to concentrate on the real issues. They seem to have the same agenda -make Bangladesh prosperous, then where and why the disconnect? When will we learn to be graceful in politics for the greater benefit of the country?
In the business sector the government has identified few thrust sectors but more can be done to provide the necessary incentives. Interestingly it is the government sectors which have the power to initiate and bring about change. Yet it is these very offices that have the less skilled labour force. Increasingly there is a trend for better educated students to join the private sector, creating a vacuum of talent in the public sector, to guard themselves against corruption which arises out of being under paid and under incentivised. Yet that cuts a sorry figure since the public sector is where the policies guiding the country stem from. Without adequate knowledge-equipped individuals to formulate policies, the country can never move in the right direction.
One of the ways to let Bangladeshis gain from external knowledge can be to foster exchange programmes and invest intensively in education relating to power engineering, port management, tropical medicine, transport management, etc. Why should we always have to look to the outside world for expertise? By sending our children out to gain productive knowledge, they can upon return apply the global knowledge to a local context. It's not like we don't have such programmes now but maybe the net can be widened. Mutual agreements between governments of the US, the UK, and India can pave the way for a steady stream of students to be sent to the top schools with a guaranteed return to country agreement. Favouritism should not be tolerated while selecting such students. For those who decide to stay abroad, utilise them; make them proud enough to be the ambassadors of our country. Utilise the already existing executives. There is so much out there. So many opportunities. We just have to go get it. And we can.
Mamun Rashid is a banker.