Entrepreneurship education in Bangladesh: a beginning.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION IN BANGLADESH: A BEGINNING

During the 1970s the population of Bangladesh grew at an annual rate of nearly 3 percent while its food supply grew at an annual rate of only 1 to 2 percent. The country kept getting poorer and poorer as a result. By 1980, as the population approached 90 million, it was one of the poorest countries--and the largest recipient of foreign aid--in the world. The World Bank was the largest donor of this aid. By 1980, however, the Bank concluded that its $200 million per year or more of aid to Bangladesh was being very inefficiently used, and that all economic units in the country had very low productivity--to a large extent because of a lack of sound management. The Bank further decided that the expenditure of several million dollars to improve management education would have a very high ROI.

The author had worked in Bangladesh (then known as East Pakistan) from 1969 to 1971 on a Ford Foundation project to create an Institute of Business Administration within the University of Dhaka. That university, along with two others, offered a three-year Bachelor of Commerce (B-Comm) degree and a one-year Master of Commerce (M-Comm) degree. The new Institute was to offer an American-style, two-year MBA. Believing that one of the critical needs of developing countries is the fostering of both entrepreneurs and an environment within which entrepreneurship can flourish, the author designed and introduced a course in entrepreneurship. He was able to teach this course only once, however, for in the middle of the second year the revolution started and he and his family were evacuated from the country.

In 1980, the author was asked by the World Bank to return to Bangladesh to design a project to improve management education in the three universities mentioned above and in a Management Development Center (a subdivision of the Ministry of Industry) which ran management seminars and offered non-degree courses. The result was a five-year, $8 million project which would bring 80 Bangladeshi professors to the U.S. for additional degrees, and bring 12 to 15 U.S. professors to Bangladesh as short-term advisors. (The project also contained a number of other components.)

As part of the project, the author again returned to Bangladesh in 1983 as an advisor to curriculum revision and, in the ensuing discussions, the three Faculties of Commerce agreed (as one of many changes) that they should introduce two courses in entrepreneurship: a required course for all undergraduates and an elective course for all master's degree students. The idea was that all of the undergraduate students should be exposed to the theories of entrepreneurship, the role of the entrepreneur in history, and the role of the entrepreneur in the industrial development of Bangladesh; and then study some cases of successful Bangladeshi entrepreneurs who might serve as role models for the students. It was hoped that, as a result of exposure to such a course, the potential entrepreneurs in the senior class would identify themselves and take the elective entreprenurship course during their M-Comm program. (It should be noted that over 90 percent of those who complete the B-Comm go on to study for the M-Comm.)