HRD in Bangladesh: Chronological Background

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Khan Sarfaraz Ali

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Human resource development (HRD) is the most useful device for enhancing the knowledge, skills,
and attitudes of managers to accomplish their tasks efficiently. It helps inculcate right values and
attitudes among the managers as well as administrators and their subordinates. It keeps them abreast
with changes taking place in various spheres. It is thus, an investment in human resources to ensure
the continued quality and adaptability of the administrators of both public and private sector
organizations to change and their ability to grasp contemporary social and economic problems. Today
it has come to be regarded as very vital and a precondition for national development.
In today’s world everything is changing rapidly and every country has to cope with such
changes. The strong urge felt by governments to formulate appropriate policies, make timely
decisions and implement those decisions to meet the changing demands of the citizens, force them to
improve the managerial skills and competence through systematic training. Even the poorer nations of
the world now embark upon building training infrastructure for the development of their human
resources in an attempt to achieve the goals for wider social, economic and political development.
They are often supported in their efforts by international donors, whose advocacy of good governance
is another important reason for the increasing emphasis on training and the consequent expansion
training arrangements in poorer countries.
With a view to contribute in our national development, a good number of public and private
training institutes have been playing their role since Pakistan period. In 1960, Gazetted Officers
Training Academy (GOTA) was set up in Dhaka for regular and systematic training of the civil
servants. National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) was set up at Dhaka in 1961 mainly to
impart public administration training to the mid-level officers of central and provincial governments,
autonomous and local bodies. At the same time Bangladesh Management Development Center
(BMDC) was established under the Ministry of Industry in order to develop our manpower into
human resources through management training. In 1970, BMDC turned into an autonomous training
institute. To cater for the training needs of the senior administrators, another training institute;
Bangladesh Administrative Staff College (BASC) was established in 1977 as an apex institute. In
1984 the government merged NIPA, COTA and BASC to the Public Administration Training
Complex (PATC). PATC, later renamed as Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center
(BPATC), is entrusted with the responsibility of imparting training to officers of all categories. In
order to synchronize the efforts of different training institutions and to make training relevant to the
process of national development, a National Training Policy was formulated in 1986.
At present many training institutes like BCS (admin) Academy, Bangladesh Institute of
Management (BIM), Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center (BPATC), Land Acquisition
Training Center (LATC), Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD), Academy for
Planning and Development (APD), Rural Development Academy (RDA) and National Academy for
Education and Management (NAEM) are playing a vital role in our national development as the
public training institutes through training activities. Besides these, few NGOs like HAMIBA HRD
Centre, BRAC, Steps towards Development (STD), PROSHIKA, Resource Integration Centre (RIC),
SKILL (Specialized Knowledge and Information Liner for Life), SPEED and so on are initiating
training activities as private sector training institutes for our national development.

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Associate Management Counselor, Bangladesh Institute of Management (BIM)
sarfarazbim@gmail.com / 01817528067
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HRD is a process of developing human resource through appropriate need based training.