Course description

One of the reasons why students and their parents choose Sciences, Social Sciences or Humanities as the most suitable areas of study at school and university is employment prospects, rather than their natural talents or interests. Many believe that, with great scores in their school-leaving exams or degrees, they will be recruited to lucrative posts in well-reputed companies or government, leading to secure careers.

There are three worrying features of this strongly held belief: in the first place, parents tend to be very conservative in their ideas about ‘respectable’ jobs and, year after year, choose the same old professions. Engineering is an example of an occupation where there is simply no need for new recruits. Then, there is the worrying phenomenon of school-leavers and fresh graduates not having the necessary skills for the job market. In Bangladesh, employers continue to take on foreign technicians because schools, polytechnics and universities in this country have not prepared young people to take the initiative. They need to be told what to do, as they have never had the experience of making decisions for themselves in their school days. So, these young ‘professionals’ may have the qualifications to perform but, at work, they are at a loss. Finally, there is a tendency for parents and students to be very selective about which work they want to do: no night shifts, offices located close to their parental homes so that there is no need to commute, high social status rather than opportunities for advancement. In a country where as many as half the graduates do not have work in the same fields as their qualifications or have no work at all, these are luxuries that neither Bangladesh nor its youth can afford!

Discussion topics:

1.       Are parents too dependent on their parents about life-changing decisions?

2.       What factors mean school and university leaders cannot think for themselves?

3.       Is university education relevant to the world of work? What can we do to improve it?

4.       Do you agree with the writer that school leavers are too choosy about what jobs they want?

What will i learn?