The global job market is rapidly changing due to the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). According to World Economic Forum, 800 million jobs will be lost by 2030.
It is predicted that joblessness will be the biggest challenge of 4IR as only in Bangladesh alone, about five million traditional jobs will be wiped out by 2041 as many employments that we see today will be lost. In 2013, the readymade garment sector employed 4.4 million people, but now it came down to 3.5 million.
The traditional education system is not enough to meet 4IR challenges as it is completely different from the last three revolutions.
The first industrial revolution occurred due to invention of steam engine, the second after inventing electricity and the third internet. All these three cases one thing was common and that was machine was used for physical jobs while humans provided intelligence.
But, in the 4IR, with the help of artificial intelligence, machines are able to think and that makes the whole job market situation extremely complicated and challenging for the students who are waiting to enter the market.
“We need to revamp our education system and for that we need education entrepreneurs who will take new initiatives to help students prepare for 4IR,” Munir Hasan, General Secretary of the Bangladesh National Mathematical Olympiad Committee told the Bangla Tribune.
Hasan, who is working on 4IR since 2015, said the education system in Bangladesh is memory-based and our students are no match for robots which have all the necessary knowledge of the whole world in their chips.
He, however, said our students are ready for 4IR provided we give them proper guidance.
“We have serious resource constraint and due to that 90 per cent of our students are adaptive to challenging situation,” he said adding, “If proper education and training are given to them, they will be able to cope with the new environment.”
Hasan said the government is waking up, especially the foreign ministry, as they are organising different awareness programmes.
When contacted, Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque told Bangla Tribune, “The whole world including Bangladesh agreed in the Sustainable Development Goals that there will be focus shift to lifelong learning from traditional education in academic and professional fields.”
The predictable pattern of job market is changing fast and now there is no guarantee that a good student completing Masters degree will get a good job, if she or he does not have innovative ideas.
“Ideas will be the name of the game in the future job market as repetitive works will be taken over by the robots,” the secretary said.
In Bangladesh more and more business enterprises are opting for the 4IR and we are creating awareness in the society so that the private sector gets efficient and able human resources, he added.
Reputed companies in manufacturing and financial sectors like Pacific Jeans, Apex Leathers, Brac Bank and IT start-ups are successfully applied 4IR tools and applications which they find beneficial and cost-effective, Shahidul Haque said.
He admitted that this may translate into elimination of traditional jobs but it will create opportunity new employment.
In 80s when computer was introduced in South Asian countries, there was mass protest and demonstration against the new technology, but eventually it had created millions of jobs in the region, he said.