The Economist - USA (2021-11-13)

44 Asia The Economist November 13th 2021

three decades (what carbon is still emitted

will have to be captured and stored in facil­

ities yet to be developed). De­industrialis­

ing  and  shifting  towards  less  energy­in­

tensive  services  would  be  one  way  to

achieve  that.  But  given  the  importance  of

manufacturing to the economy, the conse­

quences  for  workers  and  the  industrial

centres where they live would be devastat­

ing. The only alternative is for industries to

change.  “We  do  not  want  to  lose  the  role

these  industries  play  in  the  economic

growth process, so it is critical that they be

transformed,”  says  Kang  Sung­jin,  who

studies  industrial  development  at  Korea

University in Seoul. 

What  will  this  transformation  look

like? Factories that make petrol and diesel

cars will have to switch to making batteries

and  electric  vehicles.  Shipbuilders will

have to produce carriers thatrunongreen­

er  fuels,  and  the  petrochemicalindustry

will have to provide those fuels.Steelfur­

naces will have to run on somethingother

than  coke  made  from  coal.Electricityfor

both  industry  and  households,nowpro­

duced mostly by coal­fired powerstations,

will have to come from renewablesources.

Just  as  during  the  switchfromlightto

heavy  industry,  the  changewillbemost

visible in industrial cities. Inthefuturethe

government  envisions,  placeslikeUlsan

and Gunsan will be connectedtohugeoff­

shore wind farms and coveredinsolarpan­

els.  Green  hydrogen  will  powernext­gen­

eration  container  ships  andcarbon­neu­

tral steel furnaces. 

Just reinvent yourself

The  government’s  most  recentplanshave

spurred  companies  into  action. Yet the

lack of preparation means thattheroadto

net zero is likely to be bumpy,withindus­

tries vulnerable to shocks. Moreover,there

is  no  guarantee  that  the  pledgeswillsur­

vive  the  next  election.  Climatechangeis

not yet a big issue in the presidential­elec­

tion  campaign,  and  the  nextgovernment

may not feel the need to keepuppressure

on the conglomerates.

That means that many ofSouthKorea’s

industrial  centres  could  enduplooking

more like Gunsan, as investmentingreen

tech  yields  results  in  othercountriesand

higher  emissions  render  some ofSouth

Korea’s  industries  obsolete.Government

efforts  to  get  Gunsan’s  laid­off workers

into new employment have progressedon­

ly sluggishly. Thousands haveleftthecity.

At  the  site  of  the  old colonial port,

where city officials have launcheda series

of urban­regeneration projects,visitorsto

a large ship­shaped museumcanrelivethe

experience  of  trading  rice  ina 1930sver­

sion of the city. Unless SouthKorea’sgreen

economy gets whirring, the museuminUl­

san  on  the  opposite  coastmaysoonac­

quire a similar old­timey vibe.n

EducationinSouthAsia(1)

Levelling up

F

ewin bangladesh woulddeny that

their  country  has  had  remarkable  suc­

cess  at  getting  kids  into  classrooms.  Four

decades  ago  less  than  a  third  of  children

finished  primary  school.  Today,  80%  do.

Before  the  pandemic,  more  Bangladeshi

girls than boys attended high school. In In­

dia  and  Pakistan,  the  reverse  is  true  (see

story on next page). 

Improving the quality of education has

proved  trickier.  More  than  half  of  Bangla­

deshi ten­year­olds in school are not profi­

cient  in  reading,  according  to  the  World

Bank,  and  more  than  a  quarter  of  those

aged between 15 to 24 are not in education,

employment or training. A year and a half

of  pandemic­related  school  closures  have

made matters worse. 

In  some  respects,  unimpressive  out­

comes have not held back Bangladesh. The

economy  has  been  growing  at  an  annual

rate of 6% for the past decade, reaching 8%

before the pandemic. The two main drivers

of growth, the garment industry and remit­

tances from overseas Bangladeshi workers,

have boomed. But that is because labour is

plentiful  and  cheap,  not  because  it  is

skilled.  Bangladeshi  labourers  in  the  Gulf

often earn less than their Indian brethren.

Garment workers in Dhaka, the capital, toil

for lower wages than rivals in China. 

Sustaining  growth  will  rely  on  moving

from cheap to skilled labour, says Hossain

Zillur Rahman of the Power and Participa­

tion Research Centre, a think­tank in Dha­

ka.  “Those  skills  need  to  be  created  now,”

he says. The government is shaking up the

curriculum  as  a  way  to  achieve  that.  The

plans, which are due to be implemented by

2025,  focus  on  shifting  away  from  mind­

lessly  memorising  textbooks  and  regurgi­

tating  them  during  exams  and  towards

building  useful  skills.  All  exams  will  be

scrapped until third grade. Year­end public

exams,  which  start  in  secondary  school,

will wait until tenth grade. Before that, stu­

dents will be assessed on their knowledge

and ability throughout the year. 

The new curriculum, which comes after

years  of  consultation,  including  with  em­

ployers  and  workers,  is  designed  to  ad­

dress  the  mismatch  between  education

and  the  skills  required  in  the  economy,

says Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury, the depu­

ty minister for education. A choice of two

vocational  subjects  from  such  options  as

woodwork, graphic design, car mechanics,

child care and plumbing will be mandatory

for  high­schoolers.  The  government  also

plans to open more technical universities.

Though many education experts are in

favour of the change, some worry parts of it

amount to trying to run before learning to

walk. How can coding be taught well when

“we cannot ensure numeracy and literacy”,

asks Niaz Asadullah, an economist who fo­

cuses  on  education  inequality  at  the  Uni­

versity  of  Malaya  in  Kuala  Lumpur.  More­

over, he says, tens of thousands of madra-

sas,  which  are  unaffected  by  the  changes,

have  no  government  oversight  and  teach

little beyond the Koran.

Nor  does  changing  the  curriculum

solve  many  of  the  other  problems  under­

lying  Bangladesh’s  poor  learning  out­

comes,  says  Mr  Asadullah.  Teachers  are

poorly  paid,  inadequately  trained  and  too

few in number. Bangladesh has among the

largest  class  sizes  in  the  region,  with  one

teacher to 45 pupils in secondary school. 

Worse,  the  system  is  riddled  with  cor­

ruption. Many teachers bribe their way in­

to  staying  in  cities,  ensuring  that  remote

regions  get  fewer  teachers.  Appointments

at all levels are often based on political in­

fluence  or  bribery,  according  to  Transpa­

rency  International,  an  advocacy  group.

Certificates are handed out on a similar ba­

sis.  The  bribe  needed  to  secure  a  head­

teacher job can be 1m taka ($11,660).

Public funds flow less easily. At 2.1% of

gdp, Bangladesh spends less on education

than  any  other  South  Asian  country,  and

falls well short of the 4­6% recommended

by  unesco,  the  unbody  responsible  for

education  among  other  things.  Mr  Chow­

dhury  says  that  a  chunk  of  education

spending comes from different ministries,

and so is unaccounted for in this figure.

As a result of all this, many of the curri­

culum  changes  introduced  over  the  past

decade are yet to be implemented. The re­

cently announced reformsare “on the pos­

itive  trend”,  says  MrRahman.  But  only  if

they actually happen.n

Bangladesh is making a serious

attempt to move away from cramming