Dr Muhammad Sougatul Islam, Senior Research Fellow, Biomedical Research Foundation Bangladesh & Vice President, Bangladesh Association of Biotechnology Graduates (BABG)
A two-day national biotechnology fair was held at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Novo Theatre in Dhaka on September 7-8, 2018. It was first event of this kind organized by National Institute of Biotechnology (NIB) under the directions of the Ministry of Science and Technology. The ministry organized this fair in order to increase the awareness about biotechnology and enhance the research and business involving biotechnology. The fair essentially attracted and involved almost all of the components of biotechnology community in the country. And as a result it became a showcase of our biotechnology where 68 participants including public and private universities, research and professional organizations came up with their activities and innovations. Minister of the Science and technology ministry, Yeafes Osman launched the fair, visited the stalls, and inspected local innovations. He vowed that his ministry will keep cooperating persons and organization coming up with innovative ideas in biotechnology and boost it up in future. He emphasized the application of modern biotechnology to face the challenges in agriculture, health, industry as well as climate change.
The fair was also poured with different kind of events to encourage young researchers and students. Noteworthy among them were 3 minutes thesis presentation (3MT), business idea contest and quiz contests. On top of that, there were both idea and research based poster presentations and popular scientific talks by eminent scientists. The event eventually turned up in a fair in its real sense which enabled teacher, students, researchers and professionals to interact and know each other in a festive environment. Many college and school students visited the fair which bears the testimony of the success of this events and proved that an all-inclusive event should be organized regularly to increase the awareness about biotechnology among young generation.
As a platform of graduate biotechnologists, Bangladesh Association of Biotechnology Graduates (BABG) participated in the fair. As the vice president of the association I was actively present in the event and interacted with a number of graduates coming from every corner of the country. BABG was established to work as a professional platform for graduate biotechnologists and ithas started emerging as a holistic national level professional association of graduate biotechnologists from all the public and private universities in Bangladesh. BABG is promised to promote professional development of members by utilizing existing technical knowledge as well as facilitate networking and communication among members to share knowledge, expertise and ideas. Therefore, through this national level event we came across a huge pool of graduate biotechnologists and exploredtheir aspirations. BABG already have nearly 2,000 members onboard and there is a rising pressure from the graduates to place their demands in front of appropriate authority.
Biotechnology is the science of the 21st century and in order to face the challenges of this century first ever graduate biotechnology programme started back in 1995. Walking over a 23 years’ time period, 20 public and private universities are now educating biotechnology graduates and around 600 graduates are being produced every year. But, unfortunately job positions have not been created in parallel to consume those talented graduates. As a result graduates are struggling to take a different career path in corporate sector or going abroad for higher studies. Once in abroad biotechnology professionals are not willing to come back and serving over there. Whatever job positions are available in the country, biotechnology graduates are either not included or cannot access those positions. For example, in a recent job advertisement to recruit assistant teachers of government schools by PSC, physical sciences included pharmacy and biochemistry graduated and biological science included microbiology graduates. Neither of those category included biotechnology graduates as eligible candidates, although current university curriculums in Bangladesh prepares them qualified for both parts. Similarly, in many universities biotechnology graduates compete with other biosciences graduates for a position in a biotechnology department, whereas they do not even get a chance to apply in other biosciences departments. These necessarily means biotechnology as a discipline is yet to be accepted by mainstream which is of paramount importance to be resolved.
To incorporate the knowledge and expertise of biotech graduates for national development, opening those opportunities are demand of time now. Unless any visible actions are seen in near future, frustration among graduates will keep soaring that will eventually end up adding in “brain drain” or “brain in the drain”. Those situations may discourage talented students to study in this subject in future. Similarly, biotechnologists with relevant expertise should have opportunities in national agricultural research systems (NARS). Additionally, private sectors such asin pharmaceuticals and agro-biotech industries biotechnologists should be accommodated. Once this trend can be set up, Bangladesh will be able to attract expert expatriate biotechnologists and that is absolutely necessary to feed the benefits of biotechnology in our economy and development. There were two roundtables in recent national biotechnology fair where eminent academicians and professionals of the growing biotech sector were present. On behalf of BABG we raised those issues in a roundtable for “Education, Human Resource Development and Employment”. These are heartfelt words of biotech graduates of this country. Unless their voices are addressed, Bangladesh will not be able to utilize their talents, rather rest of the world will be benefited as they are contributing now. We hope government, policy makers and relevant stakeholders will soon pay their attention to expand the job opportunities of biotechnology graduates so that son of our soil can further enrich it by their valuable contribution.