Challenges
The challenge of youth unemployment is impeding the country’s pace of implementing the ‘Vision 2041’ and achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 as the youth unemployment rate is as high as 10.6% of total unemployment. The huge supply and demand gap in labour market is catalyzing the unemployment problem and restricting the economic growth. In 2016 the World Bank estimated that around 2.1 million new entrants will join the workforce yearly for next 10 years and if nearly 1.3 million jobs are created per year according to BBS’s calculation in 2018, there will still be 800,000 newly unemployed people every year. The fear of job loss due to the emerging 4th industrial revolution is worsening the situation. This gap in labour market enlarges when the industries fail to find skilled HRs because the youths do not possess right skills the jobs require as the market demand is absent in the skills training courses offered by 13,000 public and private skills service providers. Moreover, as there is no real time data of the labour market is available, on one hand the industries can not get ahold of the current supply of skilled youth in the market and on the other hand the relevant Ministries and Departments cannot take data-driven decisions relevant for skills, education, employment and entrepreneurship.
Toward a Solution
The country’s current practice of supply driven trainings has led to a supply-demand mismatch as youths are unable to learn the right skills for jobs while the employers and industries are unable to find suitable human resources that they require. As a solution to this problem, a2i- Aspire to Innovate Programme, developed a one-stop data driven matchmaking platform “National Intelligence for Skills, Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship (NISE)”.
NISE aims to minimize youth unemployment crisis through the following innovations-
- Making real-time data available for the policy makers and decision makers to make evidence-based informed decisions regarding youth skills and employment.
- Bringing together 32 Govt. Departments relevant to skills development under 23 Ministries into one platform so that they can use platform’s future job forecasting feature to ensure market driven skills development.
- Connecting 42 industry associations into a single platform to make sure the HR demands from their member industries can be visualized in real time.
- Providing career guidance for the youth.
- Offering suggestions on business and entrepreneurship.
- Highlighting apprenticeship opportunities.
- Showcasing migration opportunities to potential migrants.
- Securing meaningful decent employment.
NISE follows “leaving no one behind” approach in ensuring information accessibility for all and minimizing digital divide. This is a one-stop platform where the stakeholders can fulfill the needs of one another for stimulating economic growth. NISE is simplifying and digitalizing the services offered by public & private skills service providers as well as sharing real-time data for job forecasting and market analysis to transform their mechanism from supply driven to market demand. Policy Makers can monitor and evaluate the youth database, entrepreneur database, access employment tracker feedback and other real-time data in an analytical framework that ultimately helps in evidence-based decision making.
This platform comes as a light of hope for the youths who are frustrated and confused about their career due to lack of proper direction on how and what will enable them to secure a decent job. The registered employable youths especially the youths in hard-to-reach hill tracts and riverside island areas are able to access information on AI based career guidance, skills trainings, job forecast, apprenticeship opportunities, business and entrepreneurship guidance, migration suggestions, etc.
Not only to the public and government but also the private sector also benefits from this platform as the solution is connecting the public and the private sector. NISE facilitates the industries to advertise job vacancies targeting the right audience, receive skilled youth, and build up a supply-demand relationship with skills providers so that information can be shared amongst them on emerging job opportunities, skilled HR, and market driven skills.
Therefore, the platform’s whole-of-society approach is the key factor in creating a matchmaking environment for the stakeholders. Through platform’s matchmaking attribute, skills mismatch in the country will be reduced which ultimately will contribute to the uplifting the youth unemployment problem and boosting economic growth.
NISE has been recognized as one of the most functional platforms for serving the youths and their potential employers and become a global role model for its significant contribution in mitigating youth unemployment in Bangladesh. Till date, NISE has been acclaimed both nationally and globally with the following recognitions:
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NISE has been awarded at the “World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Champion 2020” in the “e-Employment” category by International Telecommunication Union, Switzerland.
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UNDP Chief Digital Office (CDO) in New York has declared NISE as a Global Best Practice in 2021 (https://digital.undp.org/content/digital/en/home/stories/meet-digital-x-s-10-ambitious-new-teams.html).
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United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) has declared NISE as a Good Practice in their latest publication of 2022 (https://www.unsouthsouth.org/2022/03/16/good-practices-in-south-south-and-triangular-cooperation-in-least-developed-countries-2022/ – Page no:128).
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NISE has been declared the winner of the “Bangladesh Innovation Award 2022” in “innovation in public service delivery”.
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NISE has been nominated to be a “Digital Public Good (DPG)” so that other countries with similar problems can easily use the platform in their own contexts.
