Bangladesh and NRBs – Untapped Reservoir of Knowledge, Expertise & Experience
By: Dr. Faisal Rahman, Professor & Founding Dean of The Graham School of Management, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, IL
“This paper is based on my many conversations with Ambassador Serajul Islam – “Shobuj” – particularly in the few years preceding his sudden, sudden death. The credit for any ideas should rightfully go to him – a true patriot who spoke up relentlessly and wrote without fear against the autocratic rule and destructive path in which Bangladesh was headed prior to the Gen Z-led revolution.”
Bangladesh in the last 54 years of existence has proven to the world many things – it proved US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger WRONG by NOT becoming the “bread basket” of the world, brought out women out of home to the work place and helped become the 2nd largest garment producer in the world and contributed significantly to lift people from poverty by promoting worldwide the idea of microcredit. If we had a truly democratic system with equal economic access and opportunity, instead of a kleptocracy, unpatriotic oligarchs, subservience to our immediate neighbor and power limited to a few, our progress would have far more astounding and comparable to other Asian economic “Tigers.”
The past policies caused a steady “brain drain” from every field from Bangladesh to North America, Europe, and Australia. The best among those are now experts in every field throughout the world. While countries like China and India have built bridges with their expatriates and used their extensive knowledge to make their economic positions stronger, Bangladesh has kept the Non-Resident Bangladeshi experts from contributing.
How many Bangladeshis know that Dr. Fazlur Rahman Khan is considered the “Einstein of Tall Structures” and all tall buildings, whether in Dubai, Shanghai, or Chicago, use his model? Underperforming students all over the United States access the “Khan Academy” for tutoring and learning – founded by Bangladeshi-origin Salman “Sal” Amin Khan, Khan Academy channel on YouTube has almost 9 million subscribers and our very own Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Fazle Hasan Abed’s contributions to lift the poor are recognized more outside of Bangladesh than, shamefully, in their own country.
The three key areas where NRBs can be extremely helpful in lifting Bangladesh to the middle-income level in an accelerated manner are HEALTHCARE, EDUCATION AND MARKET ACCESS FOR Bangladeshi products and services.
Bangladeshi physicians and health management experts currently contribute significantly to the delivery of healthcare in the USA, Canada, UK, and Australia. Their expertise could easily be utilized to develop and deliver affordable healthcare to most of the population in both urban and rural areas. Such a model can be based on utilizing “physician extenders” (nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, medical technicians and others who require less expensive training and can be placed in the remotest parts of the country), using technology platform to provide patient-physician consultation through telemedicine and transmit test results using digitized methods for important tests like MRI and others. The above can be delivered at a fraction of costs without sacrificing quality. The system should also embrace transparency for all stake holders and accountability for all providers of care –something which is totally missing under the current structure.
Education is available today to most Bangladeshis, but quality education is not. Greater Dhaka has more universities than any other mega city in the world. Similarly, there are schools everywhere, but parents must pay at coaching centers for the education the students should have received at their respective schools. There is also significant disconnect between educational offerings at every level and the needs of the work place. This is not unique to Bangladesh, but reforms are underway in most of the developed countries to prepare the students to be members of the global workforce. Towards that end, Bangladesh can seek out NRB educators in multiple countries to help change the curriculum and make the teachers accountable in the classroom. Concurrently the teachers need to be paid a living wage, so they do not need to seek out income supplementing work. There are numbers of tools available to evaluate teachers and administrators and do we have the will to enforce them? We are often critical of our neighbor India, but they have not allowed their education standards to deteriorate or politicized. Indian medical and engineering graduates can compete with anyone in the world and the integrity of their educational degrees, particularly from top ranked ones like IIT, are respected by both major global employers as well as highest rated institutions of higher education in the USA.
Finally, Bangladesh must move away from its overt dependence on garment exports (which can be emulated easily by other countries) and remittances from unskilled work force in the Middle East and elsewhere. Here also NRBs can be instrumental in opening new markets abroad and opening higher paid jobs for Bangladeshis in the global market without them having to leave their homeland.
To illustrate, the manual worker from Bangladesh can be certified in accelerated short programs (sometimes as brief as 3-4 months) and be eligible for significantly higher pay. A certified cook or butcher makes 5-6 times as much as an uncertified person doing the same work. In the medical area, MRI and X-Ray technicians have plenty of well-paid jobs available at home and abroad. Certified coders can find jobs in 50+ countries. The demand is even more for trained nurses and home health caregivers in aging countries like the USA and most of Europe.
Bangladesh is not a poor country with all its resources at home and abroad. Our biggest resource is our relative young, hardworking population, physically we are located at a strategically important place and we do not have to look far for examples to emulate. We have a visionary leader at the helm and now we need a plan to best utilize our many advantages. Success is not inevitable; hope is not a particularly good strategy, and it is up to us to make success a reality.
Dr. Faisal M. Rahman is Professor & Founding Dean of The Graham School of Management, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, IL 60655, USA. Dr. Rahman is also the Co-Founder of the APAC group of healthcare companies. He was a former member of the Civil Service of Pakistan. Contact: rahman@sxu.edu Mobile: +1-312-533-0452
