28.24% of National University graduates remain unemployed: BIDS study

A study by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) has revealed that 28.24% of graduates of colleges under National University remain unemployed.

The unemployment rate among male graduates is 19.96%, while the rate among female graduates is 34.31%.

The findings were shared today (9 December) on the third day of the "Annual BIDS Conference on Development 2024" during a session titled "BIDS work III: Education and Health."

The conference is being held at a city hotel and will continue till tomorrow.

During the session, SM Zulfiqar Ali, research director, at BIDS, presented a paper titled "Understanding unemployment among college graduates".

Study revealed, 16.2% of graduates are self-employed and 13.22% are working part-time while studying.

Meanwhile, unemployment rate among those educated in the rural areas is 1.5 times higher than urban areas.

Unemployment rate among graduates of non-science subjects is higher than science graduates. Unemployment rate is comparatively higher among the graduates of BA (pass), Political Science, Library Management, Bangla, and Islamic History.

According to the study, 36% of the National University graduates are working as a teacher or assistant teachers.

The study data was collected from four categories of respondents-graduates, students, college principals and current employers of national university graduates.

Sample size was 61 colleges (17 government and 44 non-government), 1,340 graduates, 670 students, 61 principals and 100 employers.

According to the employers, ICT (90%), English Language (90%), Communication (78%), Problem-solving (75%), and Teamwork (61%) are the most important areas of expertise that they would like to see among the graduates they employ, SM Zulfiqar Ali said.

Challenges the colleges face include - poor attendance of students in the National University affiliated colleges, lack of provisions to provide technical, soft and socio-emotional skills to the students. Many subjects the colleges offer have very low demand in the job market (General History, Islamic History, Political Science, Philosophy, etc.). Collaboration with the industry is virtually non-existent, according to the report.

Zulfiqar Ali said, to improve the situation there is a necessity of appointing required number of qualified teachers, providing them with regular training (both subject-based and pedagogical), providing them with adequate incentive, improving physical facilities with modern equipment (multi-media classrooms, ICT lab, etc.), introducing market-based learning facilities and extra-curricular and soft-skill activities (various clubs, etc.)