BRAC’s Skills Development Programme (SDP) has initiated a pilot project Progressing the Retail sector by Increasing Decent Employment (PRIDE). BIGD will conduct a survey to evaluate the effectiveness of the project. One of the main goals of the project is to ensure decent employment for the learners who will be receiving training from SDP. Therefore, BIGD will survey the retailers who have signed Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) with SDP, agreeing to employ the trained learners to examine the training outcomes.
Researchers: Dr Narayan C. Das; Md. Shakil Ahmed; Afsana Adiba
Partners: BRAC Skills Development Programme (SDP)
Timeline: September 2021–November 2022
Status: Ongoing
Method: Quantitative
Contact: Afsana Adiba; afsana.adiba@bracu.ac.bd
Context
As per BRAC reports, retailers in Bangladesh are hesitant to recruit persons with disabilities and females because of safety and security reasons (BRAC, 2021). Moreover, women are perceived to have limited capacity to handle physical strain. The report further finds that only two percent of the retailers are willing to recruit persons with disabilities. To address this issue around recruiting females and persons with disabilities, BRAC’s SDP and BIGD are working to create employable skills and decent work opportunities for marginalized youth.
Objectives
The research aims to observe the training outcomes for urban youth in Bangladesh who are from lower economic strata and other disadvantaged groups particularly women and People with Disabilities, and by supporting industry standardisation in major cities in Bangladesh: Dhaka, Khulna, Chattogram, and Sylhet.
This study is relevant to SDG 1 (No Poverty), particularly to ending poverty in all its forms everywhere.
Methodology
BIGD intends to conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the project. Learners will be randomly chosen for intervention. Each cohort comprises 340 learners, of which only 240 learners will receive training. Among the 240 trained learners 175 of them will be randomly assigned to the treatment group. The remaining 100 untrained youth will form the control group. Therefore, the total study population will sum up to 1100 learners in Dhaka, Khulna, Sylhet and Chittagong districts.
Findings and Recommendations
Study ongoing.
BIGD conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) on BRAC’s pilot initiative, titled Progressing the Retail Sector by Improving Decent Employment (PRIDE). Based on the study, an article titled “The Effects of Job Training on Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Bangladesh”—authored by Afsana Adiba, Md. Shakil Ahmed, Narayan Das, Md. Karimul Islam, Tanvir Ahmed Mozumder, and Muhammad Shahadat Hossain Siddiquee—was published in the Journal of Development Studies. This blog summarizes the key insights from the article.
