Yesterday. I had dinner with a small circle of people that I admire.
Among so many topics, one key idea stood out in the discussion: And that is, lack of English proficiency is really holding us back as a nation. And one of the most highest ROI thing that we can do is to teach everyone how to listen, write & speak English well.
If we could do this, ands do this well – this can unlock so much opportunities for so many people.
Tens of millions of our remittance laborers put their blood, sweat to earn money & send it back home. But, these poor fellows are exploited like anything , just because they can not communicate in English. The exploiters know how helpless they are in a foreign land, without knowing English , since they can not even seek proper justice- for their exploitation.
Millions of our freelancers dream of earning a good living, doing freelancing in platforms like fiverr or upwork. But, they earn peanuts, because they can not convince the clients in those platforms due to their poor English.
Even a significant portion of the white collar NRBs- stagnate in their career in abroad because of their lack of English proficiency .
This is also one of the biggest reason behind, why we can not capture global business- here in Bangladesh.
We will also miss out utilizing AI-tools to amplify our productivity , and further lose our edge in the world market, since all AI tools needs to be prompted in English
I wonder, what can be the solution to this problem?
With my little experience working with the government, I don’t think any government initiative can solve this problem any time soon.
Can non-profit and community driven initiatives like Toastmasters or Bangladesh Debate Council- be a good model to follow . Or is it the venture backed online edtech platforms like 10 minute school model that may work.
I look forward to learning about opinions, on how we may solve this .