69,000 diploma students receive stipends for vocational training
DHAKA, Nov. 18 (World Bank Press Release) — Skill development and vocational training aligned with market demand are key to ensuring better employability for Bangladeshi youth in both local and overseas job markets. Around 69,000 diploma students from the 93 polytechnics institutions have received stipends under the Skills and Training Enhancement Project (STEP).
10% of these students are female. Out of the 93 polytechnics, 43 are public and 50 are private institutions. The Government has decided to provide stipend to all female students in the eligible polytechnic institutions.
The STEP is working to strengthen public and private polytechnic institutions to improve quality of skills training and align curriculum with market demand. All the selected polytechnic institutions have brought changes in their management committees by incorporating industry representatives in their decision making process.
The project is also assisting 30 polytechnics to implement their development plans and supporting 50 short-course training providers, who have already trained 32,000 in 38 technologies. One-fourth of these trainees are women. Recently, the pass rates in supported polytechnic institutions have increased to 68% and short-courses to 95% as the quality of education and public examination has been improving.
The World Bank and the Government of Bangladesh recently reviewed the implementation of the project and found that the project has made very good progress. However, the project needs to increase the pace of implementation and so it was decided to restructure the project to achieve better development results.
The World Bank approved the US $79 million STEP project on June 2010 and Canada had approved US $20 million equivalent grants in March 2013. The project will be completed in 2016.