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Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BWCCI) has trained 46,536 women through 1,939 batches under the Enterprise-Based Training (EBT) programme of the ASSET project as part of efforts to enhance women’s economic empowerment, skills and employment opportunities.
The achievement, recorded up to August 2026, represents 100 percent of the target of 24 trainees per batch, according to updated project data.
The EBT programme is being implemented through the Apprenticeship Dual-Mode Training Programme (ADTP), Technical and Skills Training Programme (TSTP) and Specialised Upskilling Training Programme (SUTP) in different cycles.
Of the total trainees, 37,080 women received training through 1,545 ADTP batches, 6,192 through 258 TSTP batches and 3,264 through 136 SUTP batches.
So far, 30,188 trainees have taken competency assessments after completing their training, with 19,921 assessed as competent. The competency rate among those assessed stands at around 66 percent.
However, the rate is not considered final as training and assessment activities under different cycles are still ongoing.
Employment or self-employment information has so far been recorded for 11,848 women, equivalent to around 59.5 percent of those assessed as competent.
The employment figures are also subject to further updates as trainees from different cycles remain under post-training employment tracking.
The programme considers employment broadly, covering not only formal jobs but also self-employment, small businesses, home-based enterprises and income-generating services.
Women are receiving training in areas including tailoring and dressmaking, fashion design and product development, food and beverage production, embroidery, hand stitching, block-batik and screen printing, beautification, caregiving, ICT and freelancing, and entrepreneurship development.
The apprenticeship and workplace-linked training programmes provide participants with hands-on experience in real working environments.
The BWCCI programme has also included 14 women with disabilities and 263 women from ethnic minority communities. Of them, eight persons with disabilities and 161 ethnic minority women participated in ASSET training.
Thirteen women with disabilities and 94 ethnic minority women have been assessed as competent, while employment or self-employment information has been recorded for eight and 73 women respectively.
Under the extended ASSET project, the future-of-work occupations aligned with National Skills Development Authority (NSDA) competency standards include primary healthcare services, ICT and freelancing, block-batik and screen printing, hand stitching and embroidery, tailoring and dressmaking, caregiving for children and people with special needs, elderly caregiving, fashion design and product development, modelling, microfinance operations, food production and beverage services, and entrepreneurship development.
The NSDA competency-standard-aligned list also includes Level-3 and Level-4 tailoring and dressmaking and Level-4 entrepreneurship development.
BWCCI President Sangeeta Ahmed said providing women with skills training, entrepreneurship development, market linkages and access to low-interest bank loans could create new employment opportunities across the country.
“Entrepreneurs can contribute to creating new jobs in both rural and urban areas,” she said, adding that the ASSET-BWCCI project could help expand opportunities to export skilled workers in the future.
Sumanta Kumar Mahanta, deputy sub-project manager of the ASSET-BWCCI project, said bringing more than 46,000 women under skills training through EBT was a significant achievement.
“Our goal is not simply to provide training. The main objective is to ensure that women can use their acquired skills to secure jobs, become self-employed or start their own businesses,” he said.
BWCCI’s current priorities include bringing training graduates into competency assessments quickly, increasing the competency rate, creating employment and self-employment opportunities for competent women, and connecting women entrepreneurs with markets and business networks.