Educated but unskilled: shortfalls of formal education in a narrowing job market

"Lekha pora kore je, gari ghora chore shei!"— an idiom very familiar to Bengalis that promises "cars and horses", in other words, wealth, provided we studied sincerely.

As a fresh post-grad student, I'm toiling two days a week after work hours, sitting through three-hour night classes and breaking my neck over many assignments. And I'm yet to earn a "gari" (car) or a "ghora" (horse).

Despite working for seven years, it seems like skills in MS-Office or other apps fall short of being relevant when applying for jobs. Employers now put your logic and experience to test, to see how you tackle real-world problems they never wrote about in exam guidebooks.

Someone in an interview board once inquired, "If a colleague asks you for a confidential file under your reporting supervisor, what will you do?" Using my communications academic background, and my ad-hoc learned logic from past job experiences, I answered, hoping it was the best answer. Clearly it didn't work out the way I thought it would. After almost a decade, the realisation dawns: the textbooks from our years of formal education never mentioned the skills needed to succeed in the job market.

Add to that, the unrealistic "skill" expectations from employers that causes graduates to suffer from cognitive dissonance regarding their formal years of learning. Unemployment, occurs in the absence of right skills rather than scarcity of jobs. In 2019, a World Bank report found: one in three students remain unemployed right after graduation and only 19 percent of college graduates are being employed in full-time or part-time jobs; while the rest are unemployed ("One in Three Students Unemployed", The Daily Star).

With a majority of the youth sitting jobless, it's baffling to see that we're still clinging to the idea that, good grades ensure good jobs. Especially when the stats on unemployment suggests otherwise. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) shows that more than 46 percent of graduates remain unemployed; additionally, graduate tracking surveys from last year states that 30 percent of college graduates and 20 percent of university graduates have remained unemployed for over a year.

The impact of the asymmetry between knowledge read and knowledge learned in practice is most apparent when considering the bleak employment scenario for Bangladeshi youth, at a time where there are 2 million people entering the labour force every year as the World Bank says.

The reform of teaching practices (or the lack of it) in educational institutes is a tale as old as time. A major dent in our education system is the dependence on rote-learning. Addressing the issue, a 2015 report in this newspaper said that "as per a 2012 baseline survey on class-III students conducted under the Third Primary Education Development Programme, only 20 percent of students had the competence level of class-III, 30 percent had the level of class-I, and 50 percent had the level of class-II", stating further that teacher's insincerity is what contributes to the gap in learning.

We have received theoretical knowledge under local boards (SSC, HSC, Dakhil) or foreign boards such as Edexcel, Cambridge. Nurturing skills however was not an area explored by our alma mater. This dire need for trained teachers is reflected in their methods of teaching along with their proficiency in English. At the moment, 55 percent of English and mathematics teachers in secondary schools aren't equipped with any proper training in their respective subjects, says the Education Watch Report from 2018-2019. Looking back at my own schooling experience, I too can corroborate that many subject teachers didn't have a strong command over English, although they were following an English medium curriculum.

But despite knowing well there's a dearth of career-centric education in Bangladesh, employers expect candidates to think on their feet. So, imagine how puzzling it is, when students, regardless of which medium they were instructed in, applying for jobs get rejected without any scope for feedback which would include their lack of fluency in English and other job-related practical skills.

The problem isn't the inability to learn a foreign language, rather handling the rejection that comes with it. Rejection sans constructive criticism only makes a job seeker feel incompetent; and professional inadequacy at any level, is a big baggage to carry. So where to from here? There's academic merit, but spoken English isn't good enough, there's experience but the skills aren't befitting. You're now riddled with enough anxiety to make you second guess your abilities.

With the rising uncertainties, eager graduates are exposed to inconsistencies of the advertised skills required in the job market. And I'm no stranger to this myself! In an attempt to transition my career in communications, I had accepted a job offer from an organisation, only to realise it was more content writing and less communications; and from there began the monotony of serial underemployment.

Many like myself, dive into the rat-race of earning big money—only to wind up in a workplace with strict hours and decent salary—but with work that gives no scope for learning, thus, killing whatever is left of one's creative skills or productivity. With the job market being a tight squeeze, many professionals surrender to underemployment for the sake of survival; and the 1.38 crore underemployed masses can vouch for this ("1.38 cr people underemployed", The Daily Star, 2019)!

Hence, it's imperative that educational institutes teach these skills to the youth prior to graduation, and make them better armed with employer-approved skills and knowledge before entering the job market. Furthermore, partnerships with skills developing bodies will help rectify the misconceptions surrounding good grades and employment in Bangladesh.

A skills heavy curriculum like Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center (BYLC) has helped in tackling knowledge, skills gap and unemployment among students in English, Bengali and Madrasa schools since 2008, through a plethora of opportunities such as job placement opportunities, career guidance, mentoring, training on strategic thinking and ability to communicate, thus mitigating the divide and discrimination between students and employers.

Similarly, if higher education was more subject specific, it could enable students to be more proactive when they are prepping to get in and out of jobs. For example, a journalism student, as part of the course, could be sent to shadow print or broadcast media journalists for a simulation of what the job entails.

If employers are looking for a communications expert with tech skills in Illustrator, InDesign or Photoshop, there should be a course or workshop that focuses on teaching the basics of such software. At the end of the day, what needs to be communicated to students is that, CGPA is merely an indicator of who to employ, the skills are what ensure job security.

While private universities are arranging job fairs regularly, there's no guarantee that access to an organisation, let alone an interview will happen instantly after applying. Employability is dependent on communication skills such as speaking, listening, constructively arguing, resolving conflict, coping with failure and participating in teamwork. Such workshops and training sessions, prior to graduation, will allow students to quote these abilities in their CVs, showing tangible proof that they aren't just book-smart.

There are many students who still firmly believe that a high CGPA might be their saving grace. But rising unemployment is a clear indicator of it being otherwise. The complacency towards this learning loop goes to show that we are also part of the problem. The reform we've been discussing for ages needs to be addressed and implemented by universities. If that pans out, maybe someday, the unemployed population and individuals like me can afford the "gari-ghora" that education promises.

Rubab Nayeem Khan is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.