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National service programme

The selection process should be transparent
8 March 2010, 18:00 PM
EDITORIAL
THE pilot project launched by the PM the other day is indeed a novel enterprise. It is an innovative employment generation project that comes as a beacon of hope to many. We are told that the project would eventually provide employment for more than three quarter of a million of unemployed youths in the country. The programme was very appropriately launched in the most poverty stricken area of the country, Kurigram, which for greater part of the year suffers from abject poverty. This is in effect an on the job training scheme guaranteeing employment at the end of the training period The project involves an initial three-month training of the selected unemployed youths in a variety of subjects that include nation and character building activities, disaster management and social welfare works, basic knowledge in health and family planning, physical education, forestry and environment, agriculture, public security, law and order and services of the union and upazilla parishads. And they will be paid a daily allowance of one hundred Taka. Thereafter they will be employed in various departments of the administration for a period two years. The project needs to be carried through, given the tremendous potential it has to employ such a vast number of youth who find themselves without employment, and who, for lack of a permanent and secure source of earning, seek other ways of income, not always through legal means. Although on the face of it Tk. 100 per day may not sound very much, but the amount, we are certain, will help supplement the family income of a vast majority of those included in the project, and provide subsistence to many. A very good feature of the project is that the avenues for filling up ancillary posts of many public jobs have been opened up through this project. There are a few things though we feel the government should keep in mind while operationalising the project. The curricula will have to be such that the trainees should be able to find employment elsewhere in both the private and public sectors, after the period of attachment with government agencies, or be permanently absorbed in that post. The other equally important aspect is the selection of candidates. We understand that guidelines have been formulated and procedures devised in this respect. In spite of that, the government should ensure that the procedures are followed in a transparent and fair manner and see to it that the scheme does not acquire a partisan character and is not politicised to serve the ends of the party in power.

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