Three countries examine youth education and employment issues

More budgetary allocation for employment of Bangladesh youths urged

Speakers at a pre-budget discussion in the city yesterday urged for more budgetary allocation for creating employment opportunities for the vast youth community of the country. Besides earmarking more funds in the coming national budget for youth development, they stressed the need for making available job-oriented training and adequate hassle-free bank loans for the educated youths who want to create self-employment.

Eminent economist Atiur Rahman presented the key note paper in the discussion, organised by the Bangladesh Jubo Union. Parliament member Dr Abdur Razzak, Managing Director of Pubali Bank Khandkar Ibrahim Khaled, Software developer and former Jubo Union leader Mahbub Zaman, social worker Delwar Hossain, labour leader Shahidullah Chowdhury and Director of Proshika Mohammad Shahabuddin took part in the discussion. President of Jubo Union BM Shahidul Huq chaired the discussion. Economist MM Akash conducted the session.

The discussants said that a budget with serious plans for uplift of the youths, who comprise 30 per cent of the total population, and 66 per cent of whom are unemployed, would greatly contribute to lessening social unrest caused by all-pervasive frustration among the youths.

They said the government should give incentive to the concerned banks which would extend interest free loans to the youths for self-employment. They also demanded of the government to stop imposing extra burden to the unemployed youths by taking bank drafts and postal orders for processing applications seeking jobs.

Speaking on the occasion Khandkar Ibrahim Khaled said 13 crore people over 54,000 square kilometres should not be called asset unless properly trained or equipped with sound education. He said the Bangladeshis will have to penetrate the global job market like the Chinese to change their lot.Mahbub Zaman said a link between the universities and the industry must be established for the development of the youths.

Mohammad Shahabuddin said the "upcoming budget will be implemented in the light of the IPRSP and the IPRSP is the local edition of the so called Structural Adjustment Policy designed by the World Bank and the IMF". " So, any discussion on budget beyond the set framework will be of no use", he said. Five of the NGOs, which used to provide a good number of jobs, are in great problem now.He urged the youths to go ahead unitedly to realise their due share. Shahabuddin urged the civil society to rise above partisan views to do something for the youths.

Shahidullah Chowdhury said "budget formulated to serve the vested interest" will not benefit the youths. They would have to struggle for changing their lots, he said.

http://independent-bangladesh.com/news/may/24/24052003bs.htm#A2

For sake of healthy economy US youth can't be left behind

A challenge to New England's leaders: In the early afternoon before the workday's end and before the school bell rings, drive or stroll around downtown Boston, Hartford or Providence. Midday, while many of us are tucked in offices or bustling to and from appointments, many of New England's young adults congregate in groups on street corners, watch cars pass, stuff their hands in their pockets, wait for something to happen. They are not in school, not in training, not at work; they are bored, aimless and undereducated. They are headed nowhere except maybe — quite probably — for trouble.

According to recent research done by Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies, some 200,000 New Englanders ages 16 to 24 are out of work and out of school or job training. That translates into a whopping 12 percent of the region's population in this age group.

Nearly eight out of 10 are high school dropouts or graduates with no post-secondary schooling. Without work or access to jobs-skills training and employment programs, they are more likely to engage in petty crime and gang activity, give birth without being married and suffer alarming rates of drug dependency. At a time when they should be acquiring the kinds of knowledge and skills that can lead to a lifetime of productivity and opportunity, they have instead developed severe skills deficits that can lead to a lifetime of dispossession.

This group of disengaged young people is especially vulnerable given long-term shifts in the New England economy. The region has seen a drop in the number of manufacturing jobs - which once provided good salaries and stability to blue-collar workers who had not attained advanced levels of education - accompanied by substantial growth in the professional services sector, which requires a work force with significantly higher education and skill levels. In its pursuit of efficiency and growth, the economy has bestowed generous earnings premiums on those with higher levels of human capital - education, skills and work experience - and grown increasingly unforgiving of those who lack these attributes. Having fallen behind, these youngsters are in danger of being left behind by the labor market — and in life — for good.

This is a moral and sociological crisis for New England as well as an economic peril writ large. During the 1990s, the region's work force saw a net increase of only 180,000 workers. Stagnant growth in the labor supply means constraints on future economic growth. In such a context, New England simply cannot afford to have some 200,000 young adults remain idle year-in and year-out.

If New England hopes to ensure an adequate supply of workers, especially as the baby-boom generation ages, we need to do a much better job integrating this population of disconnected young adults into the mainstream job market. Research done at Northeastern's Center for Labor Market Studies proves that one of the most effective ways to accomplish this is through programs that give trainees opportunities for hands-on work experience while strengthening their basic literacy proficiencies and developing skills tied to specific occupations.

The harder question, of course, is where the resources will come from to support the kind of comprehensive, regional commitment that reaches all the displaced, disconnected youth. The answer may emerge when the region's business, government and education leaders realize that our economic vitality depends on getting more of these youngsters back on a route toward opportunity. An investment in our young now will pay enormous dividends - for us and for them - in the future. It is time for our civic leaders to come together to address this vital challenge.

Richard M. Freeland is president of Northeastern University. Charles Lyons is superintendent of the Shawsheen Valley Technical School District and first vice president of the National League of Cities.

by Richard M. Freeland and Charles Lyons

http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/asyo05252003.htm

Japanese government examine different approaches toward education

The eradication of illiteracy throughout the world is an ongoing endeavor and a noble one. However, in countries where the vast majority of the population can now read and write, those populations did not, as the German poet-essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger once said, learn to do so "because they felt like it, but because they were forced to."

This point may sound academic, but in light of the current "crisis" in education it's one that warrants consideration. In every industrialized country, the state says that everyone must go to school, and it educates its citizenry in a way that benefits the state. In other words, an ideal — universal education — that emerged during the Enlightenment as a means of liberating people from suffering ended up becoming a means to build a workforce.

Nowadays, the economies of the industrialized world are focused not on production but on markets, which means an educated workforce is becoming increasingly redundant. The purpose of education is no longer clear. Political leaders make grand statements about not wasting a single young mind while in the background school budgets are cut to the bone and parents turn desperate about their children's "competitiveness."

These ideas were discussed in two ambitious NHK programs that were broadcast on the BS1 channel last weekend. Responding to the Japanese government's stated resolve to tackle the current education crisis with bold initiatives, NHK looked at the state of education in Japan and the rest of the industrialized world.

The two-hour Saturday night program was centered on the results of the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) achievement test survey of 15-year-olds carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The purpose of the test is to gauge how well children in developed countries are being prepared for "full cooperation in society."

Three public school educators discussed the ramifications of the test results, and focused their attention on Finland, which came out on top, Germany, which came out near the bottom, and South Korea, which did slightly better than Japan and which has an educational structure similar to Japan's.

The conclusion they reached was that the competitive form of education that industrialized countries adopted to cultivate their best and brightest no longer works the way it should. In Germany, a child is ranked in terms of scholastic ability at the age of 10 and then set on one of three different academic tracks. In Japan and Korea, students spend elementary and junior high school preparing for tests that will determine which high school or college they will attend. Finland, on the other hand, tries to downplay competition in its public schools.

The relevance of such a conclusion is undermined by the fact that the three educators, as well as many of the industrialized countries themselves, responded to the PISA results as would parents whose own child didn't do as well as expected on an exam: What should we do to make sure our kid scores better next time?

Sunday night's two-hour debate hit closer to home. The topic was the educational component of the Koizumi administration's new economic zones. The idea is to devolve some educational functions, such as hiring teachers and curriculum development, to the local level. In addition to two showbiz personalities — one a singer with six children, the other a young female idol who said she was the victim of bullying in her youth — the panelists included two university professors and a gently patronizing representative of the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry. Reportedly, the ministry is not too crazy about Koizumi's "experimental" system since it will weaken its heretofore unassailable power in dictating educational policy.

Fundamentally, however, the system adheres to the philosophy of the ministry, which the representative characterized as creating "resources for society." According to the economic zone plan, regional governments are allowed to make changes in public schools to "stimulate their local economies."

The program looked at a handful of local proposals that have been approved so far by the government, including a school in Ota that will provide classes completely taught in English. Originally, the mayor said that Ota, which is a major industrial center, will require a more internationalized workforce, but so far such schools have been magnets for well-to-do parents from all over Japan who think their kids will have an edge if they attend an English-language public school. This development was unexpected, but not unwelcome. The mayor says the school will also help meet "parents' needs."

Indeed, the main impression one got from the debate is that the educational reforms the Koizumi administration is considering are market-driven. Japan already has a huge education industry that extends beyond private schools to juku (cram schools), technical schools, and publishing. Part of the reforms involves giving accreditation to schools run by private companies, a move that the administration claims will give parents "more choices."

"But will the students be happier?" was the singer's contribution to the debate. The most dramatic aspect of the education crisis in Japan is not falling international test scores, but rather classroom chaos and truancy, which has been rising as skilled jobs move overseas and the educated workforce becomes more redundant. This relationship seems obvious, even if the solution isn't. So far, the government deems it necessary to complicate the system further, or, even worse, make it more "morally" stringent — i.e., the controversial Liberal Democratic Party plans to foster patriotism by mandate. Universal education has, in a sense, come full circle, only now it's the students who need to be liberated from suffering.

By Philip Brasor

26 May 2003

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fd20030525pb.htm

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