In Bangladesh, there has been a noticeable change in the trend among business students and graduates. A few years back, most of the business graduates in Bangladesh opted for a career in multinational companies (MNCs) or large local corporates, primarily in the telecom sector or financial sector with high salaries to start with. However, the perceptions of business graduates regarding a professional career have somewhat changed in recent years. Individuals no longer plan their future on a permanent relationship with a single employer even when they continue to follow the same career path. Great emphasis is placed on the self-management of one's career and continual skill development. Because self-employment provides these opportunities, entrepreneurship has aroused increasing interest, especially among the business graduates of the country.
Entrepreneurship is crucial from individual, social and economic perspectives. It encompasses creativity, innovation, risk-taking, as well as the ability to plan and direct action towards the achievement of goals. However, most newly established businesses experience difficulty surviving the initial period of operation on the market. Despite the eagerness to start a business, some business graduates say they do not fully understand what incorporating a business entails and more than half of the graduates feel they are not adequately prepared to face the real-life challenges of starting a business.
Regarding this, Akif Ahmed, an entrepreneur and a graduate from IBA of Dhaka University said, "As a business graduate from IBA, I identified passion for working with new things as my strength. I started doing little consultancy work in the final year of my education, and I thoroughly enjoyed working on new things. Therefore, after graduation, I started my own company. It was both a right and a wrong decision. This was because I was not aware of the real-life challenges, but my failures and mistakes were mine, and I have overcome my fear of taking risks which I would not have been able to do if I were at the comfort zone of earning a regular salary."
There are still groups of business students who are likely to consider a business degree as a stepping-stone to a high-status, high-salary career. In today's world, corporate business careers are available in every sector one can think of; all industries need strong leaders, managers, financial advisors and market-savvy decision-makers. For many business graduates, the traditional pathways still hold a strong appeal - including careers in the banking and financial sectors, consultancy, and human resources and marketing roles.
No matter whether one is working in highly paid corporate sector or in one’s own business, the essential skills needed in this ever-changing and volatile business environment need to be realigned. Globally, education and training expenditure is expected to increase from US$ five trillion to at least US$ ten trillion by 2030. Principal contributors to such growth are rising population and smartphone penetration, advances in technology, and demand for new skills. It is more than clear that education needs to be realigned with the rapidly changing world where youths spend most of their time staring at screens.
In this respect, Ayman Sadiq, the CEO of 10 Minute School said, "This generation is born in the digital age. They are resourceful and efficient at using technology. So we need to provide them with relevant work rather than wowing them with facts and figures."Organisations need to change their attitudes as well. They need to provide the young graduates with challenges and opportunities to learn through their mistakes. "As managers and leaders, we need to coach these students and adapt ourselves to guide them through self-directed learning, mistakes and successes," added Ayman.
The nation is not yet aware of the tremendous impact that digitalisation and technology will have in the field of business education. Recent changes in the business environment, such as internationalisation of education, technological innovations as well as job market demands for new skills, inevitably lead to a shift in perception about business education and society expectations about the institutions. Globally, business schools today have to act as a platform for different stakeholders networking and interactions on a global level. Therefore, changes in business education landscape are more complex than ever before.
The business education must introduce job-oriented curricula and skills-based training for business students to be successful in their careers. Universities should identify the skills that are required by corporate bodies for employability both at home and abroad. Universities should equip their students with skills, attitudes and abilities so that graduates are confident going into the job market.
By all accounts, business students are more interested than ever in starting their own companies or working for new ventures or startups. Top business schools across the globe are trying to help students test their ideas in a safe place. They warn them about the challenges and give them a taste of what start-up life looks like. Similarly, the business schools in Bangladesh need to increase resources in the form of more specialised coursework, incubators, mentorship, and links to funding.
The universities or the tertiary education system in Bangladesh still lags in responding to the changes in the business environment. The nation needs to nurture and encourage the passion of the students to take risks and innovate. At the same time, the country needs to create an enabling environment and facilitate education in such a way that by the time they graduate, they are equipped with the essential skills for entrepreneurship. We need to improvise our formal education curricula from a traditional business knowledge approach (finance, marketing, supply chain) to an innovative perspective based on management knowledge with an essential business core. We need to incorporate contents such as leadership, team management, problem solving and result orientation, negotiation, motivational technique etc. The development of this subject matter through practical teaching will lay the foundations for the business students to enhance their skills alongside their passion and creativity.
Rashedur Rahman, executive director of Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship Centre, University of Dhaka (ICE@DU), reinforced this and commented, "In general, universities in Bangladesh are still behind in responding to these emerging trends of business graduates starting their ventures. Technical, infrastructure and financial support required to nurture and establish an effective entrepreneurial environment is still at a nascent stage in almost all the universities. Some of the universities are trying to respond by taking different awareness and training initiatives."
Dr. Melita Mehjabeen is associate professor at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka.
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