While selecting a topical subject for an editorial couple of days ago, the lead news report of one of the English dailies caught me by surprise. The title referred to how the education sector failed to cater the needs of a booming readymade garment sector. And how some 34, 340 expat workers residing in Bangladesh took away as much as USD 2.36 billion.
The manner the two issues had been linked with one another made me curious to go through in detail. First, it was learnt that local fashion schools, in particular BGMEA sponsored institutes like the BIFT (BGMEA Institute of Fashion and Technology), state-run textile colleges and the few private fashion schools failed to meet the growing demand for professionals in the RMG sector. At the most the colleges and institutions can collectively provide up to 30,000 educated and trained professionals in different capacities but not more. And according to factory owners and industry specialists the demand is more than double the number.
The second, expats serving in the RMG industry was exploiting the shortage crisis of trained manpower to the full. Nevertheless, according to an unpublished study report jointly prepared by the Dhaka University and The Centre of Excellence of BGMEA--34,340 expatriates are currently holding top positions in RMG factories while remitting around USD 2.36 billion they receive in salary and allowances. Off-the-record, if one includes the millions made out in the name of receiving commission by the innumerable foreign buying houses, earnings of illegal foreign employees -- the amount would cross the USD 5 billion mark.
Shouldn't the flight of billions be a matter of concern? How can we stop the foreigners from coming and taking our money away? Most importantly, how can we educate and train up the local workforce to compete and replace the top managerial or merchandising posts occupied by the thousands?
This writer's reply to all of the queries would be blunt -- there is no easy solution to the problem and no matter how much you differ with me -- it is we, who deliberately continue to invite expat employees to handover our hard-earned money to them. Moreover, we cannot stop their entry anytime soon since we lack in professionals to replace them.
The truth, however, similar to the undisciplined and lopsided growth of other sectors, the RMG sector too, had boomed without a proper infrastructure. For decades critical compliance and safety issues were intentionally neglected by factory owners. Private manufacturers focused solely on two issues -- increased work orders and fat profit margins. They or the governments had no time to ponder over how to formally educate and train up a proper industry oriented workforce.
Even though, unofficially we are the second largest exporter after China but our dependence on foreign management yet keeps growing by leaps and bounds. Other than looking at foreign management with scornful looks, we should look at ourselves first.
Compare to the estimated official amount of USD 2.36 billion, many unaccounted billions had left the country during the 80s and 90s. Numerable foreigners residing in the country at that time massively indulged in corruption under the banner of under invoicing of textile raw materials, placing orders with only preferred dodgy factories while forced many to procure fabric and accessories from their chosen sellers. Many may disagree; it has mostly been the Indians to take an upper hand to control our industry. Our manufacturers willingly remained ignorant to a larger extent, in terms of un-tapping potential export markets.
World-class academy, institutions or universities should have been introduced for grooming professionals from the very beginning when the RMG sector began to expand rapidly during the early 80s. Pin pointedly, the founder of Desh Garments' owner, late Nurul Quader Khan's efforts to dispatch an entire batch of some 30 or so employees to South Korea for advanced training in the late 70s should have signalled the need.
However, not strangely enough I have very few reasons to blame expats serving our RMG industry. Up till now, when it comes to communication and negotiation skills, product merchandising to factory management, higher level of quality assurance , supply chain management to any form of professional integrity - the Indians and Sri Lankans are a few good steps ahead of us. Speaking from first-hand experience, majority of the expat youngsters working here are comparatively more focused and motivated than ours. Particularly, when it comes to mastering linguistic and managerial skills at all levels, our employees not only lag miles behind but they also lack in self-confidence. Rather involuntarily, many of the owners become dependent on foreigners.
And one fine morning we wake up and discover this truth by irresponsibly pointing our fingers towards our fashion schools and institutes. Our governments also played some negative role in this respect, Successive political governments only capitalised on how much foreign exchange was being earned by shooting-up exports. Even many of today's ruling party's politicians are owner of factories who never shy away from recruiting expat professionals, but if you ask them what's their long-term ambition to put an end to this foreign dependency. There will be no pragmatic reply to your query.
And now, all of a sudden after nearly four decades we come to realise that foreign workers are taking away our money by the billions. The bottom-line: It usually takes a crushing blow for Bangladeshis to wake up to their senses and to stand-up against a massive challenge, (I am not excluded from that group either). That said - it took an earth-shattering Rana-Plaza disaster for re-introducing and regulating compliance and safety issues in our factories. Possibly we will become extra-ordinarily serious to address the foreign recruitment issue after another USD 20-30 billion flies away through the hands of expat workers.
Now that we ourselves have raised the issue of foreign workers and the poor quality of our professionals - only we can find out a solution to address the employee crisis. First of all, not by blaming foreign recruits, not by blaming the education sector, the blame will have to be shared both by the private and the public sectors. On one hand, we practically invite and handover our money to foreign managements since we need them while on the other many of our business houses are heavily depended on them. The need of the hour is to how to strike a balance between the two and concurrently train and educate our youngsters and professionals.
There is no point arguing over the issue of foreign recruits until we thrive to catch up with their high standards, communication and managerial skills -- until then let's keep paying them for their services in a balanced manner -- and do the needful to reduce our dependence on them.
The writer is Assistant Editor,The Daily Observer
