The government is going to provide soft skills training to 500,000 jobseekers and employees within the next five years, aiming to improve their employability skills.

“The demand for soft skilled and trained people will substantially be increased over the next decades as huge jobs will be transformed by technology,” State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak said on Saturday.

He said the government in partnership with a reputed global organization will provide the quality soft skills training to students, jobseekers, employees, self-employed individuals and freelancers to enhance their personal ability to get and keep a job.

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Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) under ICT Division in partnership with Wadhani Operating Foundation (WoF), a US-based nonprofit public benefit corporation, will provide the training online under BCC’s training platform `www.bdskills.gov.bd’.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between BCC and WoF last week (1 August 2021) to complete the soft skills training programme by 2026.  

Project Director of Leveraging ICT and CA Operation and Security Director of Data Center of BCC Tarique M Barkatullah and Executive Director of WoF Dr Ajay Kela put initials on the MoU on behalf of the respective organization.   

The registration using the bdskills platform for the trainees will start sometimes in the last week of this month and the training will begin next month (Sept).

Palak said the training would help jobseekers to get a job as many companies of home and abroad are creating jobs in data and artificial intelligence (AI) economy, engineering, cloud computing and product development etc.

“Nearly 3.5 lakh students are graduating each year from universities and colleges and many of them are entering the job market without having adequate soft skills,” said Senior Secretary of ICT Division N M Zeaul Alam.

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He said a large number of students, graduates and employees will get the opportunity to receive training to fulfill their soft skills gaps. Unlike job-specific hard skills, soft skills are needed to succeed in nearly all occupations, the senior secretary added.

Tarique M Barkatullah said the BCC is implementing various initiatives for skills and capacity development for creating pool of adequate IT skilled resources.

“This time we’re offering soft skills training to strengthen and reinforce soft skills in job seekers and employees,” he said.

IT-ITES Policy Adviser of LICT Project Sami Ahmed who will look after the entire programme of soft skills training said there will be a monitoring team to track those who will join jobs after successfully completing the training.

The soft skills training courses have been designed taking into consideration of large number of young talents who are seeking jobs, and employees of different organizations to improve their communication skill, confidence, creativity, productivity, leadership etc., he said adding, “We want to make the training meaningful.”