National Productivity Day (May 22) lends an opportunity to officials and pundits to rethink the state of productivity from a variety of aspects, Hamid Kalantari, the managing director of the Iranian Productivity Association, said in an article for the Persian daily Shargh.
A translation of the text follows:
According to the United Nations Development Program’s Global Knowledge Index 2021 report, Iran ranks 137th in higher education; 143rd in energy consumption; 142nd in environmental performance; 146th in the quality of governance; 137th in the effectiveness of governance; and 147th in creating an empowering environment for sustainable and comprehensive development out of 154 countries.
These low rankings are indicative of Iran’s pervasive backwardness compared with other countries. The prevailing mismanagement and lack of importance given to productivity is at the root of these failures.
Given its cultural, religious and civilizational background as well as its strategic regional position and climatic diversity, is it acceptable for Iran to register a 40-year average productivity of zero and rank lowest among the 24 member states of the Asian Productivity Organization? The objectives set in three five-year development plans have not been achieved; we are even close to setting negative productivity growth in the fifth and sixth development plans.
Energy consumption in Iran is 4.5 times the world average
Energy consumption is in a sorry state, as it is 4.5 times the world average. There is no need to point out the amount of water being wasted in the country due to mismanagement, the large number of closed or inactive enterprises and factories, the crippling bureaucracy and dysfunctional administrative system, incompetent government management, lack of planning and poor work ethic among workers.
Education, as the main institution in the development of human resources, is being thwarted for 12 years by the prospect of entering the university, whereas it is expected to groom passionate, creative and productive pupils for higher things. Sadly, our higher education suffers from the same poor quality.
The most important responsibility of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and all universities and governmental and non-governmental higher education centers is to train efficient, skilled human resources to work in various economic sectors. But except for a handful of universities, a large number of their trainees is not needed by the society; they turn into educated unemployed and many have to work in fields unrelated to their majors.
Other areas such as business environment, transportation, traffic, environment, construction industry, agriculture, state-owned companies, management of pension funds and their holdings and subsidiaries are in the same miserable state.
A steely determination is needed to pull them out of the mire of inefficiencies and dysfunctionality.
