Speakers at a roundtable yesterday said the country's youths should be given skills training, which is required to develop their career considering future challenges.

They said the country's existing formal education system lacks many aspects of skill development needed for the present day job scenario.

IPDC Finance and The Daily Star jointly organised the discussion on "Life Skills for Progress and Prosperity: The Youth's Narrative" at The Daily Star Centre in Dhaka.

Tasmiah T Rahman, head of programme of skills development at

Brae, said that in Bangladesh, parents' financial situation determine which school a child will go to, which is unfortunate.

Sourav Saha of Jaago Foundation's Youth Development Programme said in their training programme they had found that youths lacked vision due to financial limitation. However, they could overcome such shortcomings through consultation, he added.

The government should look into this growing frustration among youths who have limited opportunities, he added.

Sakib Bin Rashid, chief

instructor of 10 Minute School, said learning process should be fun because students often show lack of concentration in apparently uninteresting subjects.

G Sumdany Don, chief inspirational officer of Don Sumdany Facilitation and Consultancy, said besides students, teachers should be provided with training as well to ensure quality learning process.

Mominul Islam, managing director and chief executive officer of IPDC Finance, said what students in Bangladesh miss is the "willingness to learn."

"We don't want to learn. We want to pass," he said.

The issue should be addressed at the earliest stage, starting with kindergartenaged children, Mominul said, adding most students at the time of their enrolment at universities "forget how to learn and only concentrate on having a good CGPA."

Rounding up the discussion, Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of The Daily Star, said youths should learn from incidents in their daily lives to augment their strength and build confidence to achieve future goals.

"Pick those incidents that re-emphasise,

re-energise and reiterate your strengths," he said, adding, "You accumulate them, and then you realise that you are quite a strong person."

Mahfuz Anam said the present world has two types of people - talkers and doers.

"Unfortunately, most role models that you'll have in Bangladesh are talkers," he said. "Unless the talk is backed by hard work, those are just empty words."

Ayman Sadiq, chief everything officer, 10 Minute School; Suraya Jahan, head of programmes, English Education and Skills, British Council, and Sohel Iqbal, director of education at US Embassy spoke at the discussion among others.