Devthon'20 Case, 1st Round

1. Guidelines
1. Participants are requested to read the case carefully and provide concise
solution to the problem. Plagiarism will not be accepted.
2. The Deadline for submission is Thursday, 30th of January, 11:59 PM.
Submissions past the deadline will be penalized or disqualified at the
discretion of the organizers.
3. The solution file has to be in pdf format or document file format. It must be
sent to bupdlc@gmail.com prior to the deadline.
4. The file name must be the team name. The subject of the email must be-
team name_devthon 1.0
5. The body of the email must contain the following information:
Name of each participant (first name will be of the leader)
Institution & Department of each participant
Phone Number of each participant
Email Address of each participant.
Bkash TransactionID of the team
Providing these information are a must. Solutions will not be accepted unless
all the information mentioned above are provided.
6. The word limit is 1400 words. References and Data Analysis attachments are
excluded from the word limit of 1400 words.
7. The participants must use Font size: 12, Font Style: Times New Roman and
Line Spacing: Single
8. No team will be allowed to mention their University name or Team name
anywhere in the solution (other than the email body and file name). The
mention or indication of the University name or Team Name anywhere in the
solution may result in disqualification.
9. Participants can use statistical data if necessary. Participants are requested to
mention source of their data (APA style referencing).
10. BUPDLC reserves the right to change any provisions and regulation of the
competition without prior notification
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2. Task 1: Identifying the Different Dimensions of a Problem
Background
Bangladesh reportedly has been drawing remarkable progress in the socio-economic development,
as its GDP growth escalated to 8.13 percent in last fiscal year of 2018-19. Several studies suggest
that greater growth has been expediting the poverty reduction process. As of Bangladesh Bureau of
Statistics (BBS), Bangladesh has been working hard on its steady economic growth, particularly since
the 1990s, by lowering the poverty rate from 59 percent in 1991 to 21.8 percent in 2018. In addition,
the 2019 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index shows that the population experiencing
multidimensional poverty in Bangladesh had come down to 74.4 million in 2014 from 93.7 million in
2014.
Although such reports certainly demonstrate that Bangladesh is making significant strides in
reducing poverty, the reality behind this image posits a dire situation. According to the BBS figures
from 2016, Bangladesh continues to be home to approximately 40 million poor and 21 million
extreme poor (HIES 2016). Whilst the country has gained international recognition and support for
the performance of in poverty reduction, some parts of the country are still embedded in poverty,
such as northern districts, the coastal belt and Haor regions.
Circumstances associated to poverty can be frequently seen to be prevailing in the rural zones,
mostly. Nevertheless, in recent decades, with rapid urbanization, poverty has become more
urbanized because of the poor rural people moving into urban areas which can be identified as one
of the major issues Bangladesh is lately dealing with. Thus, urban poverty has certainly become an
inextricable thing. Migration, driven by the urban pull factor of increasing employment opportunities
in cities, and push factors such as rising demographics strain, rural surplus labor, rural poverty,
environmental disasters and climate change, has been the main driver of this growth since
independence in 1971. Such rapid and massive development has presented urban areas, with
specific and extreme challenges in over 500 cities across Bangladesh. As people who migrate from
rural areas into metropolis happen to live in poverty, they are commonly seen to start dwelling in
urban slums, hoping for better livelihoods compared to how they were used to subsist. One main
continuing problem has been that urban poverty at national level is not given the required priority,
and the root of this could be the lack of representation and voice in the official spaces of urban poor.
As Bangladesh aspires to become a middle-income country by 2021, the government has laid out a
series of targets that must be attained. One of the key objectives used to monitor progress towards
this goal is to reach a poverty head-count rate of 14 percent by 2021. In that regard it is of
paramount importance to reduce the number of urban poor. Urban poverty as a unique
phenomenon has not been addressed much in the national planning documents. There have been
some GO-NGO, NGO and INGO initiatives. Before more interventions are conducted, it is important
to recognize the unique nature of the problem. Since urban poverty is essentially associated with
multidimensional factors, government and other development actors need to place critical emphasis
on the different aspects rather than focusing on any single phenomenon.
Devthon Online Round
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3. Scenario
Assume an organization is going to conduct an intervention for reducing urban poverty and increasing
the quality of life of the people suffering from it. As the background suggests, there are different
dimensions of the phenomenon of urban poverty. You need to conduct an assessment of these
different dimensions that are associated with the lives of urban poor for the organization to identify
an area of intervention.
Task
Identify different dimensions associated with urban poverty based on data, scholarly works and
observation where possible interventions can be made within 700 words.
[Please acknowledge the sources. Note that you don’t need to provide solutions or interventions. You
only need to identify the different dimensions and aspects related to urban poverty where
interventions can take place. Your response will be judged based on the width of
issues/dimensions/aspects that you can cover.]
Task 2: Developing A Solution
Background
Against 2.3 million graduates each year, only 1.2 million jobs are created each year in Bangladesh
(Tuhin, 2018). Another set of data portrays, as many as 4.4 million Youth face Unemployment in
Bangladesh (Pritu, 2018). In 2018, Youth Unemployment Rate is 12% (Statista, 2020); which coincides
with the gradual expansion of education opportunities rising the number of educated youths
exponentially.
A report titled- “Bangladesh Employment and Labor Market Watch 2018” published by Center for
Development and Employment Research (CDER) portrays that youth unemployment rate in
Bangladesh is the highest among graduates with a degree in tertiary education. Other than CDER,
another think tank- Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) recently also noted the rising unemployment
rate among the relatively more educated labor force. In line, statistical values show the rise of
percentage value is 6.5 i.e. 16.4 percent in 2013 compared to 9.9 percent in 2010 (Bangladesh
Employment and Labor Market Watch 2017). Another study from British Council sponsored report
prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) found out that nearly 5 out of every 10 graduates
in Bangladesh are unemployed (Asadullah, 2015).
A study of 2016 shows that 41 public and 103 private universities have more than three million
students (around 28 lakh students in public universities and 3.37 lakh students in private universities
as per the Annual Report 2016 of the UGC) (Hasan, 2019). However, National Universities have lower
capital allocation which has impact on its facilities, governance and the quality (UGC, 2017). Policy
directives have been undertaken in order to bridge the gap of increasing flux of graduates and the job
market.
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4. Source: National TVET survey report Bangladesh
However, some scholars argue that Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP) rather
aimed to improve the quality of infrastructure than teaching-learning and research capabilities of
the tertiary education institutions of the country in improving quality of higher education of the
country (Riyasad, 2019). Thus, Progressive Students’ Alliances have criticized HEQEP of increasing
the cost of education in the name of making universities self-reliant. UGC’s Strategic Plan for Higher
Education in Bangladesh (2006-2026) is planning to gradually reduce their contribution in tertiary
level education. On the other hand, UGC sets limit of students in Private Universities (Islam, 2019).
The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 1997, a framework developed by
UNESCO, suggested for tertiary education that- Programs should be mainly designed so that
students acquire the practical skills and know-how need for employment in a type or certain class
of occupations or trades. According to this framework, programs should provide graduates with a
specific labor market qualification. However, Bangladesh faltered in the goals set by ISCED and it is
going in the opposite direction compared to Japan, Singapore, and Thailand because these
countries put emphasis on technical education as put forward by UNESCO framework.
Bangladesh Technical Education Board (BTEB), National Skills Development Council (NSDC),
Bangladesh Technical Board (BTEB) and the Directorate of Technical Education are key players in
Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in Bangladesh along with Private and NGO
Management. However, according to a survey finding, one-fifth of the total TVET enrollment
capacity in all the institutions remains unfilled; institutions under private management are weaker
in this respect.
Enrollment capacity and actual enrollment in 2012 by division
Division No. of
Institutions
Enrollment
Capacity
Enrollment in
2012
Percent of
capacity filled in
Rajshahi 179 9884 7646 77.4
Khulna 85 6484 5736 88.5
Barisal 43 4176 2996 71.7
Dhaka 154 9570 7802 81.5
Sylhet 19 1498 1377 91.9
Chittagong 59 3366 3012 89.5
All 539 34978 28569 81.9
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5. The enrollment situation appears to be better in institutions under public management authority
compared to the private ones, the former having 91.1 percent of capacity filled in against the latter
having filled in 76.8 percent.
Scenario
Let’s assume the Government of Bangladesh wants to develop solutions for addressing the
phenomenon of the highly educated unemployed youth.
Task
Develop a short-term solution and a long-term solution for reducing unemployment among the
highly educated youth of Bangladesh within 700 words.
[Please acknowledge the sources. Your response will be judged based on the depth of the impact of
the solutions that you would provide.]
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