Bangladesh must equip its huge population with vocational skills to help industries, a leading academic said yesterday.

"If we can do that, we will become a labour supply nation. Then foreign countries would recruit our people paying all the expenses, visa fees and air fares," said Syed Saad Andaleeb, vice-chancellor of Brae University.

"If we can't develop their skills we will not be have the negotiation power," he said at a

workshop styled “Labour Markets and Growth" at Brae Centre Inn in the capital.

Brae Institute of Governance and Development of Brae University organised the programme in association with Rand Corporation of the US and the University of Sussex.

Andaleeb, a former professor of marketing at the Sam & Irene Black School of Business of Pennsylvania State University, said a part of the diaspora in the US is ready to contribute to the development of Bangladesh.

They are ready to come back in full force and contribute - they just want a platform."

For example, if the government can give them a number of technical schools the nonresident Bangladeshis will not only bring technology and knowledge but also money.

These people want to impart skills training that would meet the needs of various industries, whose requirement for skilled people varies. With their help, we have tremendous room fortransformingthe nation."

Andaleeb also took a swipe at the local universities, including the private ones, which, he said, have turned into coaching centres. "Universities would have to work for knowledge dissemination, knowledge imagination, creation of knowledge, use of knowledge and knowledge extension. That is what western universities did. Universities also need to work with others through innovation that will have a positive social impact."

Arastoo Khan, member of the Planning Commission, said education is the key to helping workers from the informal sectors move to formal jobs. Besides, skills development by the technical and vocational institutionsis needed to make graduates market-ready.

“Bangladesh would have to tap its demographic dividend," he said, adding that the country looks to benefit from the 80 million jobs that will leave China in the next one decade. Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, industries secretary, said the government would attach importance to small and medium enterprises and attracting foreign investment in its next industrial policy.

The government also plans to allocate industrial plots to private sector and foreign investors to boost industrialisation in the country, he said.

Mustafizur Rahman, executive director of Centre Policy Dialogue, said there are structural difficulties that hold back informal industries from moving to the formal sector, adding that policy interventions is needed in this regard.

Labour activist Nazma Akter said compensation package is important for workers in both the formal and informal sectors.

For example, female workers in the garment sector cannot continue to work after they reach 40. They do not get anything from their employers, so they return home empty-handed and eventually end up as beggars, she said.

Nazneen Ahmed and Selim Raihan, professors of economics at Dhaka University, also spoke, while Sultan Hafeez Rahman, executive director of B1GD, moderated the workshop. Krishna Kumar and Shanthi Nataraj from Rand Corporation and Minhaj Mahmud from BIGD and Farzana Munshi from Brae University made a presentation on formal and informal labour nexus and growth.

Amalavoyal Chari of University of Sussex made a presentation on privatisation and productivity growth.