In 2012, BRAC initiated a pilot project titled Skills Training for Advancing Resources (STAR). The aim of the project was to provide skill development opportunities to urban youth for securing better employment. Several rounds of quantitative and qualitative data were collected in the years 2012 and 2013 to evaluate the project’s potentials and challenges. Findings indicate a strong positive impact of the project on participants’ employment and earnings. There were, however, several challenges to overcome, such as participant’s underage for certain trades and lack of interest in others; low level of education, irregular attendance, etc.
Researchers: Anindita Bhattacharjee; Md. Kamruzzaman
Partners: BRAC
Timeline: 2012- 2013
Status: Completed
Contact: Dr Narayan Das; narayan.das@bracu.ac.bd
Publications
Context
Despite a large number of people in Bangladesh roaming unemployed, various positions in the country’s labour force are occupied by foreign employees. This scenario is linked to Bangladesh’s weak and untrained labour force. Age-disaggregated data from 2013 shows that about one-third of the country’s population falls within the age group of 10-24 years, with a substantial proportion lacking basic education and competencies required for growing up as competent adults with high employability. Due to this reason, the National Education Policy of the government explicitly puts emphasis on turning students into competent and productive human resources through vocational training and technical education and reduce school drop-out rates. School drop-outs mostly tend to seek employment opportunities in the informal sector requiring low/no skills. But these jobs pay very little wage and often involve substantial risk. The majority of informal sector workers in Bangladesh are forced to work without proper contracts, fixed working hours and wage rates, and compensation for work-related injuries. Therefore, it is of immense importance to provide these school drop-out children (who are working/looking for work) with systematic skill development opportunities as well as additional support to enable them to break the vicious cycle of low-skill, low-productivity, and low-income. With that very goal, BRAC’s pilot project STAR was initiated in five divisional cities: Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet, Rajshahi, and Khulna. The target group included urban youth aged 14-18 years who completed class five and were out of school for at least one year. The selected participants were then assigned to various Master Craft Person’s (MCP) workplace for six-month-long training. But how effective the initiative has been in achieving its goal remains the question.
Objectives
The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of BRAC’s STAR initiative on the project participants’ income-generating activities; identify the project’s strengths and weaknesses, and compile the recommendations made by different stakeholders involved.
This study is relevant to SDG 4 (Quality Education), particularly to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Methodology
In this study, we used both quantitative and qualitative data collected in 2012 and 2013. To compare the project’s effectiveness on participants, we included non-participants in our quantitative survey. The non-participants were selected based on age, school enrolment status, and socio-economic background and were then matched with the participant group using Propensity Score Matching for identifying best matched/suitable comparison group. We used Difference-in-Difference (DiD) technique to estimate the project’s impact on outcome variables of interest. For qualitative assessment, a combination of data collection tools has been used, including in-depth interviews (IDIs) of participants, focus group discussions (FGDs) with different stakeholders, observation of implementation process (mainly for the purpose of process documentation), and informal discussions. For process documentation, two out of the five divisional cities—Dhaka and Chattogram—were purposively selected. The main reason behind this choice was the availability of almost all of the selected trades in these areas.
Findings and Recommendations
It was evident from our study that the project has been highly successful in developing the skills of the participants leading to their involvement with different types of income-generating activities. Majority of them were found to be involved with skilled labour activities. The proportion of youth involved in self-employment increased over time for both the groups, the rate was significantly higher among the treatment group. The project’s impact on the participants’ annual income was also found to be statistically highly significant and extended to the rise of per capita annual income of the participants’ households. Qualitative data collected on a smaller group of participants indicated that all of them were engaged in trades on which they received training, and also that the project personnel has been directly involved with their job placements. Qualitative findings also revealed a major change in the participants in terms of their ability to aspire and plan for a better future. Among the major strengths of the project identified in this study were systematic implementation and monitoring process, specified detailed logbooks for respective trades, and the project’s overall ability to develop a strong sense of hope among the participants. However, there were many challenges as well, such as underage participants for certain trades; participants’ low level of education, lack of interest in particular trades, irregular attendance, lack of obedience; complicated wording and problematic sequencing of steps in the logbooks; participants’ limited scope of working with actual customers’ products; etc.
As solutions to these challenges, various stakeholders recommended revisiting the lower bound of the age range as well the minimum required level of education of the participants, as both these factors appeared to be unsuitable in several cases. There was also a recommendation for giving more emphasis on the participants’ interest in choosing a trade than on their parents’ interest, as participants’ lack of interest in particular trades was identified as a major challenge. Another recommendation was for being flexible with the weekly holidays as it varied by type of trade as well as the location of MCPs’ workplace. In terms of logistics, having at least one set of the required machinery/equipment in the technical training class was recommended for better understanding and learning of the participants.
