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Since the outburst of Covid-19 in China, the world economy is passing in a turmoil situation. Undeniably the economy of Bangladesh is also grappled by the severe public health crisis of the Covid-19. As the public health emergency is heavily interconnected with economic affairs, it has impacted each of the pillars of the economy of Bangladesh. The main purpose of this paper is to make evaluations of the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy of Bangladesh.  This study is based on an empirical review of the recent study works, reports, working papers of home, and abroad regarding economic crisis. The review findings of the paper revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic have significant impacts on the different indicators of the economy of Bangladesh especially, Readymade Garments Sector, Foreign Remittance, Bank and Financial Institutions, Food and Agricultures, Local Trade, Foreign Trade (Export and Import), GDP (Gross Domestic Product), SDGs (Sustainable Development Goal), Government Revenue and Employment etc. This study suggested that as Covid-19 still surfacing all over the world so some steps should be ensured by the government agencies of Bangladesh to mitigate possible threats for the economy.

In the recent decade, the term Industry 4.0 or Fourth Industrial Revolution is a common buzzword represents the adoption of disruptive digital technologies (Internet of things, Big Data, 3D printing, Cloud computing, Autonomous robots, Virtual reality, Augmented reality, Self-driving car, Cyber-physical system, Artificial intelligence, Smart sensors, Nanotechnology, Drones, and Biotechnology, etc.) in the production process which is transforming the manufacturing units into smart factories and experiencing a great change in the global value chain. Moreover, these revolutionary digital technologies have a profound impact on the economy, growth, globalization, governments, international trade, global supply chain, and human capital transformation, etc. The present review study aims to explore the impact, challenges, and opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution based on empirical findings specially and extensively in the context of Bangladesh. The study finds regardless of having enormous potentiality, the application of the fourth industrial revolution is far lagging for some challenges i.e. lack awareness, insufficient capital, lack of infrastructure, lack of skilled human capital, and some socio-economic challenges. This review paper will also develop conceptual links with the relevant aspect of strategic planning and application of key industry 4.0 technologies and help to formulate future policy guidelines regarding opportunities, application, and strategic decision making for the fourth industrial revolution in Bangladesh.

The Omani higher education system has enlarged noticeably since 1970 both in the number of students and in the infrastructure.  As a result, there has been a wide investment to provide quality higher educational institutes capable of providing suitable graduates to fulfill the requirements of both public and private sectors with a focus on females to assure equal gender educational and career opportunities chances. Therefore, graduates’ readiness for employability has become a major issue for Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in Oman due to the growing concern from governments and industries on the quality of the graduates.  Therefore, the main objective of the current study is to develop a conceptual framework for the graduate readiness for employability and incorporates the graduate attributes including human capital attributes, social capital attributes, individual attributes, institution-related attributes, and active learning attributes moderated by gender, career, and moral mindset among Engineering Graduate in Oman. The study uses available sources of existing literature based on the four main keywords ‘higher education’, ‘graduate attributes ‘or ‘readiness for employability, and ‘skills gaps in Oman’. The study also justified by the following theories which are human capital; education and economy development; behavior theory; and motivation theory. The literature utilized for this study covers the latest literature (from 2013 to 2020) extracted from Google Scholar, ProQuest, and Scopus, and other online resources. Based on the summary findings, the study develops a framework that analyses the effects of influential factors on the graduate readiness for employability that will be considered as an empirical study on the graduates of the engineering colleges in Oman. Moreover, the study also concluded that there are moderating effects of gender, moral mindset, and career mindset on the influence factors and the graduate readiness for employability among Omani engineering colleges’ students. The results of the study will fill the gap in understanding the main factors affecting the attainment of graduates’ readiness for employability skills in Oman. The study recommends justifying this conceptual framework by empirical data from the Engineering Graduate in the Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and draw a policy guideline for ensuring of readiness of engineering graduates for employability in the HEIs in Oman.

Participation

The Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are considered as the mainstay of the economy, whereas the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is regarded as unitary of the major drivers for SMEs. The function of the ICT is to ensure that as far as the organizations are concerned, their strategy and design, innovation of new products, services, processes, productivity, expansion of market size, improvement of product qualities, enhancement of performance and, development, as well as supporting business competitiveness can be executed accordingly. However, debates about the efficient uses of ICTs by SMEs in developing nations are being discussed and reported widely. Therefore, this study analyzes the critical success factors on the ICTs adoption in the SMEs globally focusing on Oman. Questionnaire survey is conducted among the managers of the SMEs. It is found that the effective adoption of ICTs in the SMEs is caused by a number of success factors including among others limited access to markets and, finance, lack of awareness to global markets, unfriendly business environment, poor management skills and lack of updated technology. complication of the bureaucracy process, as well as lack of training relating to basic business.

The Omani higher education system has enlarged noticeably since 1970 both in the number of students and in the infrastructure.  As a result, there has been a big investment to provide quality higher educational institutes capable of providing suitable graduates to fulfill the requirements of the labor. The mean purpose of the higher education system is to provide the nation with the quality education that meets the requirements of the 21st century with graduates having readiness for employability skills and competencies. However, The skills gap between HEIs graduates and industrial requirements in Oman and other regional Gulf countries is seen as one of the most important factors that affect the employment of graduates in the private sector because the graduate readiness for employability did not consider the graduate attributes factors which influence graduate readiness for employability. Therefore, the main objective of the current study is to determine the effects of the graduates’ attributes on the readiness for employability and justified with existing theories in the higher educational institutes in Oman. Specifically, this study intends to determine the influencing factors that contribute to the readiness of Engineering Graduates for Employability in the Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in Oman. The study reviews the current literature on the effects of graduates’ attributes on the readiness for employability especially for Omani engineering graduates as the main source of information. The study is designed to determine and analyze graduates’ attributes factors and elements. The literature utilized for this study covers the latest literature (from 2013 to 2019) extracted from Google Scholar, ProQuest, and Scopus. The four main keywords used were ‘higher education’, ‘graduate attributes ‘or ‘readiness for employability, and ‘skills gap and justify with most relevant theories in the particular area’. The study summarized the empirical review on the graduate attributes which analyses the effects of graduate attributes on the graduates’ readiness for employability that will be considered as an empirical study on the graduates of the engineering colleges in Oman. The study explored review findings on the graduate readiness for employability framework from different graduates’ attributes and provisions perspectives. The results of the study will fill the gap in understanding the main graduate attributes factors affecting the attainment of graduates’ readiness for employability skills which has justified with most relevant theories in the particular. The study also recommends a policy guideline for ensuring of readiness of engineering graduates for employability in the HEIs in Oman.