Allow FDI In SMEs

This week a leading think-tank has revealed that every year nearly 800,000 youth added to an army of job seekers. It appears that it does not ring any alarm bell across the corridor of power in government machinery. Ruling party seems little troubled by the news.

The revelation has been made in the wake of a High Court verdict that put a complete stop on all forms of extra tuition by school and college teachers outside classroom. Luckily the court, at a later ruling, spared the the "freelancers" who are private lesson providers but not involved with any educational institution.
It is incontrovertible that coaching culture in Bangladesh has rotten to the core. It puts extra cost on parents and the parallel system some how challenged the mainstream education system.

Solution to the degeneration of existing private lesson providing services is not a total halt but to regulate the industry. Despite the sparing of freelance private lesson providers, the verdict will have adverse implication on the job market. Because many teachers whose sole mean to get a decent living out of this will switch to moonlighting, putting further pressure on whatever job opportunities available in the market.

On the other hand, the form of "extra care" will take resort to classroom. It is highly likely that after this defining ruling extra care will take place within the boundaries of a classroom and parents have to bear the same extra cost as it was before the ruling. A pragmatic decision is widely anticipated where the teachers will be allowed to provide private lesson subject to restrictions. It however was not the case.

In brief, the ruling may have negative consequences for the job market as well as the on classroom teaching.

Unfortunately, we fail to create quality jobs in this country. If there were quality jobs then I think this coaching culture would not take a virulent form and teachers would be contend with their jobs.

In other sectors too, there is a dearth of good jobs. Highly polarized politics is partly to blame. Growth of private firms is synonymous with the tenure of ruling party that maintains some kind of ties with businesses. The other successful ones have closer ties with the men-in-fatigue. Rare are the firms that avoided any kind of ties with these two and stretched their businesses at home and abroad. The sheer level of uncertainty made the private sector jobs less attractive. So more and more people vie for public services jobs.

The SMEs, bloodline of an economy, are not doing well. Deteriorated governance and free season of corruption made it a victim. There have been reports that SME funds have either been swindled or laundered abroad. So the growth and employment generating sector never pitched up and true entrepreneurs remained shy throughout the period of this regime. Rare are the sectors that create jobs and add real values to economy by increasing revenues for governments and installing a formidable supply chain management system across different sectors of the economy. Our agro-processing industry is the shining example.

India has already opened up its retail market to FDI. India is more cautious about FDI. Unlike other sectors, tax evasion attempt, corruption and other fraudulent activities will be much lower in FDI on SMEs. In addition, small and medium foreign entrepreneurs who have a true commitment to stay in a country will invest here.

Bangladesh can take cue from India. In a country like Bangladesh, allowing FDI in SMEs is quintessential to propel growth and employment opportunities. Our politically blessed businessmen feel insecure here and have shown inclination towards laundering money abroad. Providing fund to these cronies never translated into job creation and value addition.

So government can seriously think of allowing FDI in SMEs and RMG industry. Please note in these two sectors our local entrepreneurs are doing well. Local RMG bosses have always been critical to such proposal. But allowing FDI in these two sectors will be boon for the two.

A more pertinent example will be in this regard our financial institutions. While our desi banks have become subject of incessant plundering,  foreign private banks in this country are doing quite well and smattering of fraudulent activities are detected in these banks over these years. Management board of these banks have always remained out of local politicians' reach. Perhaps that must be the reason behind their less troubled balance sheets.

Germans have shown keen interest in investing SMEs. I don't know whether that offer is still on the table. Bangladesh should give serious thought in its implementation. With the FDI, our SMEs will have a chance to meet superior management system, innovation and good work environment.

Since the PM is on a official visit to Germany, Bangladesh could initiate dialogue with Germany to facilitate this business proposal as soon as possible.
Given the pool of job seekers and presence of politically blessed businessmen whose only job is to siphon off public and private funds, FDI in SMEs could be seen as a game changer.

Unfortunately, we procrastinate to implement these business deals. If there were well functioning foreign SMEs in the country we would have some foreign pressure group who would help us improving the business environment in spite of significant presence of cronies.

As it appears, institutionalized corruption holds our economy back and slows further down the trickle down process of the growth distribution, we should mobilize our efforts to find extraordinary ways to make every one on board of this much trumpeted doing-well development vehicle. Allowing FDI in SMEs will be one of those extraordinary steps.

Be Kind To Private Lesson Providers

Highest court on the land severely rebuked the coaching culture. Several other appeals about private lesson providers are shelved for the first week of February to be settled.

There has been a lot of criticism about the ongoing coaching practices in Bangladesh. More precisely, private lesson provided by school / college teachers and coaching centers for entrance exams of tertiary education institutions are at the forefront of this criticism.However, no serious effort has been made to distinguish between corporatization of private lesson provider and those who took up the job to meet the basic needs.

Among others, arguments put forward against private lesson providing services include out of classroom teaching by serving teachers, influencing the results, question paper leak, falling quality of students.

Government responds to these allegations by shutting down coaching centers prior to key public examinations. In addition, it is seriously considering to impose some kind of restrictions on teachers who provide private lesson to students of their respective institutions.

Point the government is missing here is that the whole private lesson service cannot be blamed for the corrupt acts of the few.

The High Court in its recent verdict called the "private lesson providing business" is an immoral act.

Maybe the defendant lawyer did not manage to convince the court that in a materialistic society teachers also do have aspirations and dreams. They also want a secure future for their children. In a country like ours, teaching is not a rewarding career. To make a decent living out of the monthly salary is far from reality. A teacher's only source of making some bucks is this private lesson service.

Government can regulate or formulate policies regarding this service. Instead it heaped blame on private lesson providing services for decay of values in whole education system.

This faulty perception needs to be changed. Back in April last year, I wrote a piece titled"Stop This Publicity Stunt" underscoring hollow stance of Anti-Corruption Commission on private lesson services.

In that piece I argued that in our country coaching services are also available for O/A level students. However, we have not heard of any question paper leak in O/A level exams. Did the government try to find out the reason?

The question paper scam marred our public examination system because some corrupt public servants and coaching centers pander to the demand of leaked questions. Rather than putting the professional integrity and commitment under scanner the government put the whole private lesson service industry under scanner.

Apart from teachers, unemployed people, petty employees also contribute to this industry to supplement their income. Is that a crime? In an age when cadre-based political parties are flourishing and levying unofficial duties on businesses by drawing monthly extortion or charging commission on public projects or receiving monthly payments from the parties, how can a non-partisan youth or petty employee meet his basic needs or fill the shortfall in earnings needed for decent living?

There is no left or right international fraternity organizations that will send aid for him through diplomatic channels or charitable organizations.

To our dismay, we also noticed that how all the government machinery including the court stepped forward to farther accelerate the process of tribalism at the tertiary education institutions instead of making them a center of excellence. Meanwhile, our neighbors surpassed us by securing positions in Asia's top 100 universities. And 47 years after independence, we reinvented their utility in the society by dubbing them "[political]leader maker". By the way, hardly any of these leaders' son and daughter have studied at these desi universities or gone through local education system.

I found it rude and indecent when a minister said that primary school teachers should not send their children to kindergartens. None has the authority to clip the wing of aspirations of a primary school teacher.

At the same time, it is not just to make private lesson service a villain when there has been lack of quality jobs, drop in corporate salary, rising inflation and an army of job seekers.

What are the practices in other countries?

In Singapore, which is ranked 4th in CPI 2018 by Transparency International , private lesson providers enjoy a respectable life and many earn millions of dollars. The service is a well recognized industry. In South Korea, the private lesson centers are known as club( i.e. Math Club, English Club etc) and are full of books on respective subjects. South Korean students spend hours in these centers to read books and take services of private tutors.The clubs do not display name of the teachers. BBC made a magnificent documentary title "School Swap: Korea Style" on South Korean education system. Despite being less corrupt countries, both Singapore and South Korea have a thriving private lesson providing industry. The presence of such an industry did not pollute the whole education system. So the point is when corruption is prevalent in every aspect of society, private lesson industry cannot stay unscathed and remain a distant island.

I would request the court, and at the same time to the government, to read the Straits Times report on Singapore's super tutors and watch BBC documentary on South Korean school before the February hearing.

This will help them to clear their perception about private lesson providing services.Misdeeds of few cannot be categorized as common practices of a whole industry. This industry also helps to blossom the true potential of an educator and to fine tune acquired knowledge of a person who is on the verge of moving toward the next stage of his own field. A more constructive role from the part of policy makers and judiciary will be to formulate do's and don'ts and regulate the industry.