The other day I was going through a piece of article on Oprah Winfrey who is my one of most favourite motivational speakers, who I respect from deep down my heart because of her contribution to the present world. I have a secret dream in my heart (not secret any more), one day I will talk to this legend in person; spend a little while with her. Back to the point, Oprah said in the article while she was visiting Nelson Mandela in South Africa in 2000 having been invited by the latter to vacation at his home, the legendary hero was asked by Oprah what would be the single thing that can change the world. “Education” came the reply and that helped Oprah to come up with a decision to set up a girls’ academy in South Africa to help boost women empowerment. And then South Africa had it in 2007 in Henlay named The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls which is girls-only boarding school. Oprah Winfrey later detailed her mission that she founded the Leadership Academy to provide educational and leadership opportunities for academically gifted girls from needy backgrounds in South Africa who exhibited leadership qualities for making a difference in the world. Students of this academy have stared graduating from world’s renowned universities where Oprah is sometimes being invited to deliver convocation speech and it is well imagined how happy she is while she finds students from her academy in that audience while giving the convocation speech. It is said, the visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and reimagining the world that’s exactly what she did and she knew that vision is not enough; it had to be combined with venture.
Now, have a look at a few facts and figure of our beloved motherland, Bangladesh. It is the world’s eighth-most populous country, the fifth-most populous in Asia and the third-most populous Muslim-majority country. The official Bengali language is the seventh-most spoken language in the world. It has been blessed with world’s longest beach, the bay of Bengal and the only Mangrove forest of the world, The Sundarbans. But on top of everything, the country has been blessed with more than 160 million people of which around 50% are female. Some prefer to saying, this large population is a huge burden to the country but China with its 14 billion population has started showing result and teaching the rest of the world that huge population a great boon, never a bane! What we have to do is to teach this large number of population how to catch fish if we want them to have fish (food) regularly. Oprah not only dreamt but also implemented her idea into action. In the same token, we have to turn this large number of population into resources. I have a very simple but effective thought to share in this regard focusing on women empowerment. More than nine hundred thousand students have successfully passed in HSC this year of which more than 40% students are female. Now, the general scenario is like to be that many of these female students will take admission in state run or private universities in general subjects to accomplish a 4-year graduation. Having finished that, they will start looking for jobs and until that, the entire period they will have to be financially dependent on their parents and even after the successful completion of their graduation, there is no guarantee at all that they will land a good job. But the total scenario could have been totally different if they had finished a diploma degree (in nursing, ICT, Computer Science, even learning electric wiring, refrigeration repairing work, driving, different technical jobs etc). They would not have to look for job, rather it would be the other way round, job would look for them. In 2016, Canada government is likely to accept around three hundred thousand skilled workers from the rest of the world where more than 90% positions are vacant for technically skilled workers. They require thousands of nurses every year and their requirement is a simple diploma in Nursing with fairly English communication skills. And this is very much possible for us to get this workforce ready and export human resources which would not only brighten the image of our beloved country but also earn huge number foreign currency to build a prosperous Bangladesh. For the last one and half decade, our head of the state is women. Now the Speaker of the parliament is a woman, a number of DCs and SPs are women which is very praiseworthy decision taken by the prime minister and this has set a big example of women empowerment in a moderate Muslim country. I don’t know whether present prime minister, a visionary leader and the daughter of the father of the nation would read this piece of article but would like to humbly request her to initiate to bring this large number of female students under 1-2 year diploma degree on different technical subjects which will readily get them job at home and abroad and help them build their strong footing with dignity.
Khandaker Zia Hasan
Communication Trainer & Journalist
