Access and equity in vocational education : a case study of a technical training centre in Bangladesh

The current debates on growth and employment in both developing and developed countries embrace the issues concerning education and training. These debates focus on the challenges that the process of globalization, and the intensely competitive environment for goods and services that it gives rise to, is impacting on the education and training systems. An important issue in this context is the manner in which the education and training system needs to be oriented so as to ensure that not only growth in the economies is achieved but also the concomitant growth in employment is enhanced. In this context, access and equity concerns in the education and training system feature prominently. Although access and equity concerns in education and training systems may appear to have been somewhat lost in the din of market-economics, these need to be kept in focus to ensure provision of decent work and its attendant benefits to the society. Vocational education has an important role in the education system as a means to develop knowledge and skills that helps the workforce in becoming more flexible and responsive to the needs of the labour market. This research investigated the status of access and equity at a technical training centre in Bangladesh against the backdrop of prevailing policies and other support available to the training centre for the purpose. The perceptions of the primary stake holders in the training centre, namely, the students, the training centre management and the supervisory staff, were explored with a view to assess the status of access and equity at the training centre. The results from the investigation were used to develop a set of guidelines for improved access and equity at the training centre level.