IT/ITES skill development in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a country of young and competent people whose talent needs to be leveraged for economic development. The challenge is to ensure they gain the skills that will equip them for employment, meet the needs of employers and create economic growth and thereby utilize the demographic dividend. In the next five years, the working population is expected to double, meaning that around 50 million people will need to be trained.

Information technology and Information Technology Enabled Services (IT/ITES) as sectors would need to be a large part of this national mission on training and skill development which would also meet the national aspiration to shift the share of contribution to GDP growth to IT/ITES sectors.

The primary objectives of the project are to catalyze the growth of Bangladesh's IT/ITES industry for employment creation and export diversification. Some of the specific objectives of the projects are to develop skilled manpower for IT and ITES sector.

Under the LICT, to be implemented by BCC, two ambitious projects to train 10,000 IT and Science Graduates for the IT Sector and 20,000 non-IT and HSC graduates for the ITES sector respectively over three years through a Word Bank funded program have been envisaged.

These are among the largest World Bank supported integrated Skill development IT/ITES sector projects of their kind in the world.
The Top-up IT and ITES Foundation Skills are important projects not just for their scale and comprehensive skill development scope but with a potential to transform lives of large number of citizens, create an enormous talent pool for Bangladesh in the ICT and ITES sectors and kick start development of the two sectors.

These projects are the first of their kinds and will be benchmarks for large scale skill development execution initiatives in the country.
Supply creates its own demand and the endeavor is that these integrated initiatives will create a talent pool which along with other initiatives in the country will encourage foreign and domestic investment in the IT/ITES sectors in the country.




Program Details
The scope of the program includes conducting skill gap assessment studies, develop skill standards, designing appropriate Training curriculum & content, delivering training's, creating certification mechanism, monitoring using online tool for trainees, training companies and employers and building local capacity.

The projects shall begin with 'skill gap analysis' to identify the most appropriate skills our graduates must be trained on considering the talent demand specially in the country and to some extent in global markets, duration, ease and extent of training required, aptitude and present competence of our graduates etc. This shall be carried out separately for IT/Engineering, Science and HSC graduates.  The project team will undertake discussions and organised workshops, institutes and students to identify areas in which IT and ITES foundation skills training must be imparted.

The skill gap analysis will be followed by development of program curriculum and content. Equal emphasis shall be laid on technical IT/ITES topics as well as the soft skills like English communication, professional attitudes and behaviors. The delivery will use hybrid methods - e learning, and trainer-led sessions based on lectures, case studies, audio-visual tools, group exercise, practical sessions and self-learning content.

The nature of programs developed for different graduates shall vary vastly. The IT/Engineering graduates will be trained on 300 hour courses spread over 3-4 months in areas like SMAC (Social Media, Mobile technologies including application development, analytic s and Cloud computing), Big data, Java, testing, .Net, Application development, information security, networking, database management, programming and software development, project management etc. Similarly, the science graduates will be trained on a 160 hour Graphic Design, analytical research, technical IT support etc.

For the other graduates, courses in SEO, on-line marketing, tech support, BPO processes in BFSI, HRM, outbound sales, customer service etc. shall be planned.
The universities and institutes will also gain from enhanced capacity of their faculty. The most deserving master trainers will also be internationally trained under the program.

These training's by BCC shall be delivered in collaboration with the universities and institutes thereby enabling them to provide finishing course, internationally recognized certification and employment placement for the students.

The program will be monitored closely for ensuring international quality and standards using online motoring mechanisms. standardized content and faculty training & certification.

For the sincere and committed students, these courses provide free-of-cost career building and life transforming mechanisms.
The programs will first be launched as pilots and based on the leanings and necessary modifications, mass outs shall be taken up.

One of the core aspects of the project is employment linkages through a placement cell which will have an ongoing interaction with the potential employers. International employment will also be explored the deserving students.

While creating employment and enhancing employ ability are the core objectives of the projects, they also target to create sustainable skill development and skill-employment frameworks and capacity in the country for the IT/ITES sectors through job portals, grant mechanism, capability enhancement of the institutes a well as institutional capacity building of the government.

The nation-wide programs are based on the principle of inclusion with special emphasis on women graduates as well as graduates in different divisions of the country.

It is envisaged that this initiative under the able leadership of the honorable Prime Minister and IT State Minister will help the country move forward on the path of economic and intellectual development by leveraging the IT/ITSE sectors and help leverage the potential of our talented of our talented graduates.

These training by BCC shall be delivered in collaboration with the universities and institutes thereby enabling them to provide finishing courses, internationally recognized certification and employment placement for the students.