Description of Project: The SEIP is providing support to the Government of Bangladesh’s reforms in skills development anchored in the National Skill Development Policy (NSDP), 2011. It is supporting large-scale private sector involvement and public—private partnership, which is critical to meet existing and future labor market needs and in reducing skills-gap. This in turn is crucial for Bangladesh to move away from the current “low-skill, low-wage equilibrium” to a “higher skill, higher wage virtuous cycle” to transition to a middle income country. The program is also helping the Government to scale-up skilling of new entrants and up-skilling of existing workers that will contribute to higher growth of priority sectors.
Description of actual services provided by DPDS in the assignment:
The objective of the study was to trace the graduates to find out their employment status, the income they receive and performance level at workplaces. More specifically, the purposes of the study were to i) Identify employment status of graduates of the SEIP supported training institutions ii) assess the impact, relevance, and effectiveness of skills training on employment; iii) identify the nature of the jobs that the trainees received, mechanisms for getting the job, and time usually taken to get the jobs; iv) find effectiveness of up-skilling training and the contribution they made in the process of increasing productivity in workplaces; v) identify the occupation-wise range of salaries that they received after training and prospect for further progression; vi) ascertain the level of satisfaction among trainees about their skills training and the job attained; vii) ascertain employer satisfaction of the trainees and the areas that need improvement according to the employers and trainees viii) find out the reasons of non-availability of formal employment/self-employment in construction and IT sectors ix) suggest the measures to promote the quality of training thereby employability and efficiency of graduates. SEIP supported training is being delivered across the country. It was advised to cover the eight divisions of the country. The major target respondents/beneficiaries of the tracer study were 104,878 trainees who had already completed training and out of which about 69,016, as reported, are placed in jobs in industries/firms of six industry sectors. Statistical formula was applied to determine the sample of graduates for the graduate survey. Based on the scope of assignments outlined above, the firm developed methods of quantitative study that covers the face-to-face interviews of a representative sample of graduates and selective employers. The firm also prepared checklist to be used for focus group discussions (FGD) and key informant interviews (KIIs). FGD conducted for the graduates engaged in jobs and employers separately. The key informant interviews mainly focused on the selected trainers, job placement officers and the head of the training institutes of the SEIP for identifying the challenges they faced for arranging jobs for the graduates.