First skills governance training workshop for skills development professionals held in Comilla

Capacity strengthening workshops for professionals in the skills development sector started in Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development in Comilla from October 16-19, 2014. The goal of the first workshop was to bring the focal points from government ministries, departments and institutions involved with skills development together in a single forum to discuss the National Skills Development Policy.

The workshop focused on understanding the policy and identifying the roles and responsibilities that each ministry and department has within the policy. Agency focal points studied statistical information and reports and analyzed demography, internal efficiency (pass rate, failure rate, dropout rate and institutional success rate), internal monitoring and evaluation systems and governance of their respective skills development programmes.

After completion of the workshop, officials reported back to their respective agencies and a small follow-up workshop was held in which all agencies submitted information to the National Skills Development Council (NSDC) Secretariat on their skills development programmes.

The inaugural session was attended by Mr ABM Khorshed Alam, CEO, NSDC Secretariat; Mr Cezar Dragutan, Chief Technical Advisor, Bangladesh Skills for Employment and Productivity (BSEP) Project and Mr Md Shajahan Mian, Director-General, Directorate of Technical Education and National Project Director, BSEP Project.

Background

The National Skills Development Policy was approved in 2012 and the National Skills Development Council Secretariat (on behalf of the National Skills Development Council) was mandated to oversee its implementation.

In the first phase, nine government ministries and agencies involved in skills development worked with the National Skills Development Council (NSDC) Secretariat to develop action plans for supporting the policy, which led to the formulation of the National Skills Development Policy Implementation Plan. This plan was approved by the Honorable Prime Minister, Chairperson of the NSDC, in early 2014.

As a first step in implementation, it was decided to develop a pool of focal persons of respective ministries, departments and institutions and hold a series of skills governance workshops in regional towns during 2014.

Skills governance training is part of reforming Bangladesh’s skills development system which is currently being undertaken by the Government of Bangladesh through the National Skills Development Policy. This workshop series is funded by the Government of Canada through the Bangladesh Skills for Employment and Productivity Project.

See a 2-page fact sheet on the National Skills Development Policy here
See the full National Skills Development Policy (English/Bangla) here