Bangladesh starts grooming female drivers for KSA

Bangladesh has begun grooming female drivers for sending them to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The KSA has conveyed its interest to Bangladesh to recruit its drivers, both males and females, Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry officials told New Age.
The KSA by lifting ban on female drivers created a huge opportunity for them.
The EWOE Ministry began imparting four months intensive driving training to females and males at its Technical Training Centres, said officials.
Sheikh Fazilatunnessa Mujib Women TTC principal Fouzia Shahnaz told New Age on Monday that the 1st batch of 40 drivers, three of them females already passed out from her centre. 
‘We encourage young girls aged 20and more to take driving training at government expenses,’ she said.
Fouzia Shahnaz called for launching nationwide campaigns to sensitize young girls to avail of the driving training opportunities. 
Bangladeshi Ovhibashi Mohila Sramik Association director Sumiaya Islam told New Age that women’s natural instincts would make them better automobile drivers both at home and abroad.’
She said that driving skill would qualify them to work in the KSA and the other countries in the Middle East.
She said that driving would a better profession from them than the work of housemaid.
Sumaiya called for launching nationwide campaigns to motivate young 
and educated girls to take driving as their profession. 
Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training officials said that the first batch of about 800 drivers already passed out of 20 Technical Training Centres on completion of four-month resident training courses.
They said that each trainee driver was given monthly stipend of Tk 2,200 by the government to meet their expenses at the institute with free boarding facilities.
EWOE ministry additional secretary Aminul Islam told New Age that from January, driving training course would be introduced at 41 more TTCs for rapidly grooming drivers.
He said that the government was encouraging females to work as drivers at home and abroad.
He called it a happy development that young girls in Bangladesh were taking automobile driving as a profession.
Aminul Islam said that at the training stage the learners would be taught to be proficient in spoken Arabic and English. 
BMET director general Md Salim Reza said that the KSA had expressed its interest to recruit one lakh drivers from Bangladesh.
BMET officials said that the government surveyed 52 countries’ demand for expatriate workers.
They said that the government was keen to groom skilled workers to meet their growing demand abroad. 
BMET data shows that over 1.15 crore Bangladeshis took overseas jobs since 1976 and 43 per cent of them were skilled workers. 
The KSA alone recruited over 34 lakh workers from Bangladesh during the period. 
Migrants’ rights campaigner and WARBE Development Foundation’s secretary general Faruque Ahmed said that qualified driving instructors should be engaged for grooming drivers for overseas jobs.
Provide training in name only would be undesirable, he said

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net