Govt moves to create 10,000 women IT skilled-manpower

BSS, Dhaka :
The government has taken steps to ensure 30 percent women’s participation in the trainings under a World Bank financed Leveraging ICT for Growth, Employment and Governance (LICT) Project aiming at creating over 10,000 women skilled manpower for the IT sector.
“We have designed the training programmes under LICT project ensuring at least 30 percent women’s participation and we are happy that a considerable number of graduate women are appearing in the online competitive examinations held so far,” said Executive Director of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) S M Ashraful Islam.
The LICT project of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) under Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division, launched early last year, has been creating 34,000 male and female skilled manpower for the fast-growing IT sector by providing world-class training.
He said the positive social impact of the project is considered potentially significant and expected to benefit both male and female population.
An estimated over 10,000 young women would be empowered having the IT and IT Enable Service (ITES) training, Ashraf said, adding that the women will have improved employment options as compared to the traditional sectors in Bangladesh, and can be empowered significantly.
“Of the three categories of training we have already launched Fast Track Future Leader (FTFL) training programme in the first category to create 4,000 IT leaders for IT and ITES industry,” LICT Project Director Md. Rezaul Karim said.
He said the other two categories- Top-Up IT (specialized) Training and ITES Foundation Training will create respectively 10,000 and 20,000 youths as IT skilled manpower and the trainings will begin soon.
The government has ensured a quality training involving the experts in the IT sector to fill skill gap of fast growing IT and IT Enabled Service sector, said Director of National Data Center and LICT deputy project director Tarique M Barkatullah.
He said lack of skilled-manpower has been identified as one of the major problems to flourish the ICT sector and LICT project has been working to create at least 34,000 skilled-manpower for the sector.