Status Of The Female Trainers In Bangladesh

Status of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh

Status of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh: Study in Public and Private Training Organizations Khan Sarfaraz Ali

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Abstract Training is the most useful device for enhancing the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of managers to accomplish their tasks efficiently. It helps inculcate right values and attitudes among the managers as well as administrators and their subordinates. It keeps them abreast with changes taking place in various spheres. It is thus, an investment in human resources to ensure the continued quality and adaptability of the administrators of both public and private sector organizations to change and their ability to grasp contemporary social and economic problems. Today it has come to be regarded as very vital and a precondition for national development. With a view to serve the purpose properly a group of women engaged themselves in training profession and they are working hard along with male colleagues to turn our people into human resources through appropriate need based training. This article focuses on the status of these female trainers, especially who are involved in public training institutes. The study has been undertaken to contribute to both our general knowledge on formal training and to suggest a series of action for the well being of the female trainers. This piece of writing will work as a basis for the policy makers and plan executors to adopt realistic plans to add new strategies for the greater welfare of this group of women. A unique feature of the article is its analytic style. All information in it are carefully organized. This will be very important resource for anyone interested in professional training and female trainers in Bangladesh. The purpose of this article is to explore the entire status of the female trainers in Bangladesh.

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Methodology This study is the result of a series of interview and life experiences of the female trainers who are working in public and private training institutes as full time faculty member or trainer. Though the study is based on primary data, secondary information also has been used to enrich the structure. This is a qualitative type of study and case study method was applied for this purpose. A check-list containing both structured and unstructured questions was developed to collect data from the respondents. Direct participation in the interview with the female trainers and observation techniques were also active during the study period. 24 female trainers respectively 12 from two reputed public training institutes and other 12 from two private training organizations were interviewed directly Associate Management Counselor, Bangladesh Institute of Management (BIM), [email protected] / 01817528067 1

Status of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh

to gather information. Study Area Secondary data shows, there is a lack of sufficient studies on status of the female trainers in Bangladesh. A significant number of the female trainers work in the training organizations in our country. As the two renowned public training institutes in the country, Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC) and Bangladesh Institute of Management (BIM) and two familiar training organizations in private sector like: Training and Resource Centre (TARC) and HAMIBA HRD Centre were selected purposively as the study area and twenty four female trainers of these organizations were selected as the respondents to get necessary information. As these training institutes represent other training organizations in the country, experience from these organizations will help to get a clear scenario about the situation of female trainers in Bangladesh. Background In today’s world everything is changing rapidly and every country has to cope with such changes. The strong urge felt by governments to formulate appropriate policies, make timely decisions and implement those decisions to meet the changing demands of the citizens, force them to improve the managerial skills and competence through systematic training. Even the poorer nations of the world now embark upon building training infrastructure for the development of their human resources in an attempt to achieve the goals for wider social, economic and political development. They are often supported in their efforts by international donors, whose advocacy of good governance is another important reason for the increasing emphasis on training and the consequent expansion training arrangements in poorer countries. With the increasing understanding of this need and importance of training in national development, both developed and developing countries in the world are giving more attention to training. As a result, number of training institutions and allocation of resources for the purpose are also increasing globally. A number of countries like USA, Israel, South Korea and Sri Lanka are known to have achieved high economic growth with significant investment in training and education. The USA alone spends nearly US$ 12 billion on training annually. In Bangladesh also, a large number of management and administrative training institutions in different sectors have been established. Unfortunately, quality has not been assured in case of many training institutes. Most of the training institutions in the country consider training as a routine activity carried out as a part of their annual obligation, without giving any serious consideration to the impact and quantitative or qualitative return from the investment made for the activity. In a ritualistic way, the institutions usually evaluate the participants

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Status of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh

internally and the participants evaluate the classroom performance of trainers, mostly for preparing a happiness document at the end of the program. So far it is known, Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center (BPATC), the apex training institution in public administration, is the only training institution in Bangladesh that was given ISO 9001 certification in 1999. This was in recognition to its management standard on the basis of an assessment done by a competent third party from outside the country. Though there are many other training institutions in the country, established even much earlier than the BPATC, and some of them are internationally reputed, no one else is known to have received such recognition. One obstacle on the way of the training institutions in getting such recognition is that Bangladesh does not have a country standard of assessment of training institutions for quality training. It may be mentioned here that such a country standard (certification), based on a third party organizational audit to determine the availability, and sustainability attributes required for getting ISO 9001 or 9002 recognition. The government establishes public sector training institutes either as autonomous institutes or as attached departments directly under the Ministry or under relevant directorates. Usually the National Parliament passes acts to establish autonomous training institutes with their mandates and functions. The training institutes with the status of attached department are usually established through the government resolution, though there are exceptions also. The initial trend was to establish training institutes with legally given autonomy to cater to the needs of development/planning sector (e.g. rural development, agriculture, industries, etc), but gradually almost every Ministry or division established its own training institute(s) as a matter of routine program. The process led to quantitative growth in number of training institutions, but since each one was functionally brought under the administrative control of the Ministry or division, the individual training institutes got mostly confined within the domain of the respective Ministries or directorates. According to Bangladesh Society for Training and Development (BSTD) report1, out of the 20 training institutes under review, 50 percent had an existence of 21-30 years, 15 percent was established before 31-40 years and 10 percent had the maximum period of existence of more than 40 years. The rest 25 percent had a period of existence of I to 20 years. The findings reveal that particularly in the public administration, rural development and banking sectors (to which most of the training institutes under assessment belong), priority to training and establishment of training institute for human resource development was high. But out of the 20, only 7 (35%) were established as autonomous bodies through adopting acts in the national parliament, though the authority given to them to work as autonomous bodies is limited in practice. The rests continued their existence mostly as 1

Performance of the Training Institutes in Bangladesh. BSTD. 2007 3

Status of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh

attached offices/departments (45%), established through government resolutions (15%) and even still continuing with a project status (5%). These public training institutes are playing a vital role in human resource development that ultimately contributes a lot in our national development. On the other hand, training functions conducted by private organizations aim at resource mobilization, awareness development as well as sensitizing human urges. Now a day these private training institutes are working as a helping hand of the Government. Their contribution in national development is abundant. Especially their training activities for poverty alleviation, irrigation, sanitation, mother and childcare, family welfare, health care, literacy, women empowerment, legal aid and disaster preparedness are praiseworthy. In order to face the multidisciplinary problems in the modem era, there is no alternative to develop our population as human resources through training. Here both the private and public sector training institutes are doing well in this field to achieve the goal. In spite of some limitations and difficulties, they are trying at their level best to meet millennium challenges with their training programs. Concept and Meaning of Training Training and development encompasses three main activities: training, education, and development. Garavan, Costine, and Heraty, of the Irish Institute of Training and Development, note that these ideas are often considered to be synonymous. However, to practitioners, they encompass three separate, although interrelated, activities:2 Training: This activity is both focused upon, and evaluated against, the job that an individual currently holds. Education: This activity focuses upon the jobs that an individual may potentially hold in the future, and is evaluated against those jobs. Development: This activity focuses upon the activities that the organization employing the individual, or that the individual is part of, may partake in the future, and is almost impossible to evaluate.3 Training is a sequence of experiences or opportunities designed to modify behavior in order to attain a stated objective (Hesseling). Training is any activity which deliberately, attempts to improve a person’s skill at a task (Oatey). Training is accepted as a synonym for all of the forms of knowledge, skill and attitudinal development which adults need to keep pace with accelerating life involvement and the enlarging concept of man’s capabilities (Steinmetz). On the other hand, development refers to learning opportunities designed to help employees grow.

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Rosemary Harrison (2005). Learning and Development. CIPD Publishing. pp. 5. ISBN 1843980509. Thomas N. Garavan, Pat Costine, and Noreen Heraty (1995). “Training and Development: Concepts, Attitudes, and Issues”. Training and Development in Ireland. Cengage Learning EMEA. pp. 1. ISBN 1872853927.

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Status of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh

Training aims at - higher productivity, better quality of work, less learning period, cost reduction, reduced supervision, low accident rate, high morale, personal growth, and improved organizational climate.4 The ultimate objectives of formal training are to assist in - training raining needs assessment, knowledge enhancement, skill development, attitudinal change and developing the ability of the participants.

Female Trainers and their Responsibilities The trainer has to perform different types of activities like: creating proper climate for training, holding the attention of the trainees, motivating them to learning with interest and coping with human problems. Trainers would often be labeled as training officer, training specialist, training facilitator, and HRD practitioners. The role of a trainer may be seen into three broad categories as follow: learning specialist with three sub roles as instructor, curriculum builder and methods and materials developer; administrator with four sub roles as personnel developer, supervisor of ongoing program, maintainer of community relations, and arranger of facilities and finance; consultant with four sub roles as advocate, expert, stimulator and change agent. Responsibilities of a trainer are found in six roles like: learning specialist, administrator, program manager, career development specialist, consultant, and researcher.5 American Society for Training and Development mentioned the role and responsibilities of trainers as: analyzing training needs and evaluation results; designing and developing training materials; delivering training; advising and counseling; managing training activities; maintaining organizational relationships which concern training; undertaking research to advance the training field; developing professional skills and expertise; developing basic skills and knowledge. In brief, the responsibilities of a trainer can be seen as the expertise in the following areas - training cycle, selection of methods, factors in training, subject matter, training raining plan, principles of training, physical hysical facility and training budget. Female trainers p b in Bangladesh have been playing all above roles and performing the allied tasks with utmost to their ability and competence. Some of them are holding vital positions like: departmental or training head and responsible for important policy, decisions in training of respective organizations. Training Institutes in Bangladesh Training has long been recognized as an important ingredient of socio-economic development in any country. In the age of accelerated technological changes, socio economic development depends increasingly on knowledge industries and services. 4 5

Noe. Raymond A. “Employee Training and Development” 3rd edition. 2005 Leonard Nadler (1970), Gary B. Harsen (1979) 5

Status of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh

Training plays a key role in developing and disseminating skills to an individual needed to cope with the rapid changes in the society. Not only for an individual, but also for the collectivities, training assumes a vital role in their development. It is, therefore, crucial for human, organizational, community and national development. Together with education, training can bring in miracles in human resources development of a nation. In the wake of rapid technological changes and recognition of human resource as a very important contributing factor to developments, trained manpower is a prerequisite for rapid development of any country. With a view to contribute in our national development, a good number of public and private training institutes have been playing their role since Pakistan period. In 1960, Gazetted Officers Training Academy (GOTA) was set up in Dhaka for regular and systematic training of the civil servants. National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) was set up at Dhaka in 1961 mainly to impart public administration training to the mid-level officers of central and provincial governments, autonomous and local bodies. At the same time Bangladesh Management Development Center (BMDC) was established under the Ministry of Industry in order to develop our manpower into human resources through management training. In 1970, BMDC turned into an autonomous training institute. To cater for the training needs of the senior administrators, another training institute; Bangladesh Administrative Staff College (BASC) was established in 1977 as an apex institute. In 1984 the government merged NIPA, COTA and BASC to the Public Administration Training Complex (PATC). PATC, later renamed as Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center (BPATC), is entrusted with the responsibility of imparting training to officers of all categories. In order to synchronize the efforts of different training institutions and to make training relevant to the process of national development, a National Training Policy was formulated in 1986. At present many training institutes like: Bangladesh Institute of Management (BIM), Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center (BPATC), BCS (admin) Academy, Police Staff College, Bangladesh Police Academy, Land Acquisition Training Center (LATC), Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD), Academy for Planning and Development (APD), Rural Development Academy (RDA) and National Academy for Education and Management (NAEM) are playing a vital role in our national development as the public training institutes through training activities. Besides these, few organizations like: HAMIBA HRD Centre, Training and Resource Centre (TARC) run by BRAC, Steps towards Development (STD), PROSHIKA, Resource Integration Centre (RIC), Specialized Knowledge and Information Liner for Life (SKILL), SPEED and so on are initiating training activities as private sector training institutes for our national development.6 Situation of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh 6

Sarfaraz Ali Khan and Khatun Dr. Nasima (2009). A Handbook on HR Solution 6

Status of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh

The study reveals, majority of the female trainers (83.33%) think they are doing a prestigious job for themselves as well as their family. All respondents were found married and most of them have dependent members. Among them, 91.66% have family members who are directly dependent on them. 62.5% have 1 to 2 dependent members, 29.16% have 3 to 5 dependent members, and only 8.33% do not have any dependent member. Following table shows a brief picture of the female trainers in Bangladesh: Table - 1: Indicators expressing the basic information of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh Indicators Age limit

Total Education status

Total Length of service

Total View towards this job Total Present status Total Socio-economic condition Total Any type of harassment Total Satisfaction with pay package Total

Response 25-30 30-40 40-45 45-50 50 above Masters/MBA M. Phil/PhD Post Graduate Degree Foreign Degree below 1 year 1-5 years 5-10 years 10-20 years 20 years above enjoyable honorable nothing special On job On LPR Deputation well to do moderately solvent not bad yes no highly satisfied accustomed not satisfied -

No. of Respondents 6 9 4 3 2 24 19 2 3 0 24 4 6 8 2 4 24 18 4 2 24 18 1 5 24 16 7 1 24 0 24 24 4 6 14 24

(%) 25 37.5 16.66 12.5 8.33 100 79.16 8.33 12.49 00 100 16.66 25 33.33 8.33 16.66 100 75 16.66 8.33 100 75 4.16 20.83 100 66.66 29.16 4.16 100 00 100 100 16.66 25 58.33 100

It is evident from the research that the female trainers in Bangladesh have a 7

Status of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh

different entity and status. Majority of them (75%) enjoy this profession, and 16.66% consider this job honorable. A portion of them (16.66%) are highly satisfied with their pay package, 25% of them have become accustomed and the rest 50% expressed though they like this profession but not quite happy with their salary-benefits. Half of the respondents (50%) articulated that they get full time cooperation from their male colleagues, 25% confessed they get cooperation only on request, 16.66% get cooperation sometimes, and only 8.33% informed they do not get any cooperation from their male colleagues. In respect to discrimination in organizational affairs, 50% notified they do not find any discrimination, where 33.33% uttered they feel discrimination to some extent, and only 16.66% told about discrimination in many cases. Following table illustrate information relating to training facilities for female trainers: Table - 2: Training facilities for Female Trainers Training scope Uncertain Restricted On request Available Total

No. of respondent 19 3 1 1 24

Percentage (%) 79.16 12.5 4.16 4.16 100

Major portion of the respondents (79.16%) expressed their view that it is uncertain whether they will get training scope or not. 12.5% think training facilities are restricted and 4.16% respectively expressed it is possible on request or/and available for them. In case of promotion and transfer, major portion of the respondents (87.5%) mentioned fair, only 8.33% addressed bias and only one told it discriminative. A good number of them (83.33) mentioned their performance appraisal system as traditional and only 16.66% addressed the system as modern. Most of them (79.16%) feel secured in this service; only others (20.84%) find insecurity. One thing is very important to mention here that all of the respondents of the study area mentioned in one voice, they did not face any harassment in this profession. Following table represents special arrangements for the female trainers for evening trainings: Table - 3: Special arrangements for the female trainers Indicators No. of respondent Percentage (%) Sometime 12 50 Regular 2 8.33 Never 4 16.66 If requested 6 25 Total 24 100 Half of the respondents (50%) reported, they enjoy special arrangements like: allowances, transport facility, performance incentives etc. for evening training programs. On the other hand, 25% mentioned they get such facilities if requested, 16.66% informed 8

Status of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh

they never get any facility for the said purpose, and only 2 of them confessed that avail such arrangements at regular basis. 50% of the female trainers stated they have cafeteria or canteen facility for them, where 33.33% told they do not have such opportunity. In case of transport and accommodation facility, few of them talked about sufficient opportunity, 25% mentioned uncertain, and respectively 16.66% told both if requested and uncertain. Another thing is to mention worthy, in public training institutes male - female trainers ratio is 90:10, where this picture is far different in private training organizations – 60:40. In case of policy formulation or decision making, a little portion of them (29.16%) get access, where 62.5% are deemed not vital, and the rest 8.33% are simply ignored. It is very pity to state that a good number of them (83.33) highlighted that they do not have any day care facility within the organization. Specially who have little children, deprive them during work time and their children also do not get proper care in their absence. It is their heartfelt expectation, if these issues are taken care seriously; female trainers can contribute a lot in the field of socio-economic development. Conclusion and Recommendations On the basis of the above discussion it is wise to show a gateway that may encourage our female trainers to engage themselves seriously in this profession with a view to meet millennium challenges. In the light of the study it is heartfelt demand of the female trainers that Government as well as the concerned organizations may initiate pragmatic programs in relation to their daily needs and demand that will inspire them to dedicate their life in this service till last breath. In order to increase their devotion in profession, special opportunities (like: day care centre, study allowance, scholarship etc.) for their children may be launched. As an honor to our constitution, they should be given preference in organizational decision making process as per importance. Organizations should take initiative to accommodate female trainers within or adjacent to the work station. Where staff quarters are available, they should be given priority. Who stay outside of the training compound should be provided transport support or similar facility. Above all, female trainers should be treated cordially and with human approach as they are the real resource of the society who are re-building the society through training activities.

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Status of the Female Trainers in Bangladesh

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