This report presents the results of the research conducted in 11 Bangladeshi garment factories between September 10th to October 4th, 2020, within a scope of “Evaluating the joint ETIs (DIEH, ETN, ETI) JETI’s Social Dialogue (SD) Programme with focus on the Blended Learning pilot”. Aim of the research was to assess the effectiveness of the programme (Phase III) and blended learning (BL) pilot. Respondent’s thoughts on improving the programme was also taken. A mixed method using the participatory approach was followed to accomplish this. Relevant project documents and reports were reviewed as secondary sources of information. In addition, a total of 310 respondents (160: female 62, male 98 through key informant interview; 150: female 75, male 75 through focus group discussion) were interviewed. Due to the COVID-19 situation, interviews were conducted “virtually” in 7 factories and “in person” in 4 factories. Since 2014, the JETIs have been working in Bangladesh for better Industrial Relations in the RMG and textile sectors through promoting bipartite workplace and social dialogue. Like phase I and II (2014-2017), key intervention of phase III was to build/strengthen the capacity of selected supervisors, Participation Committee (PC) management representatives and participation committee worker representatives. It was expected that this training would enable all PC representatives and supervisors to act responsibly to improve industrial relation. This would eventually lead to a better business performance. The project deployed standard classroom training for its capacity building intervention but in this phase a pilot called blended learning (BL) was also introduced to comply with a couple of the evaluation recommendations of phase II to educate all workers and supervisors.
