Human capital ignored in the proposed budget

The proposed budget for fiscal 2022-23 is not conducive to a demographic dividend as it ignores education and health, the two most important components of human capital. Allocations proposed in these sectors are not at an expected level.

According to Unesco guidelines, education allocation must be at least 4%-6% of a country's GDP or 20% of its total budget, but the ratio is much lower in Bangladesh. Although the amount of money allocated for education has increased compared to last year, it is still only 1.83% of the country's GDP.

The same situation prevails in the health sector. 

According to the World Health Organisation, the health sector must get an allocation of 5% of GDP of a country or 15% of its total budget, but the ratio is much less in our country.

People concerned always say that health and education are the most important sectors but, in reality, those are not considered as important. Besides, there is a gap between budget allocation and the government's policy documents.

The government should invest in the aforesaid sectors in the light of its short and long term action plans.  The government stated a thing in its 8th five-year plan, but there is a gap in the budget allocation.

According to research, the return of investment in the health and education sectors is promising. The budget is not being allocated as it should be.

Our first demographic dividend period is next 15-16 years. If we do not invest in education and health now to create human capital to achieve the demographic dividend with the deadline, we will not get the desired results after 2037-38.

In the proposed budget, the government has emphasised vocational and madrasa education to utilise the demographic dividend which is very important now. But the allocation has increased by only Tk574 crore as compared to last year.

According to the budget, the government has established 100 special economic zones where one crore people are expected to be employed. But, it is not clear when these one crore people will be employed.

Unemployment rate has increased at a high rate. So, it is necessary to have a clear figure of employment in the budget. There are 24.4% uneducated people in the country. If they are not educated and trained, it will be a challenge to achieve the demographic dividend.

In order to make best use of the next 15 years, it is necessary to increase investment in health, education and employment and to ensure its proper utilisation. For this, skilled manpower must be created, and standards must be ensured.

Mohammad Mainul Islam is a professor at the Department of Population Sciences, University of Dhaka