Govt step draws mixed reaction
The government will give laptops and multimedia projectors to 20,500 public and private educational institutions within December 2012 to improve the classroom teaching-learning process.
Under a Tk 306 crore project titled Introduction of ICT at Secondary and Higher Secondary Level, these institutions, including the high schools, madrasas and colleges with electricity connections across Bangladesh, will get a laptop and a multimedia projector each with digital contents.
However, the initiative received mixed reactions from academicians.
The aims of the project are to teach the students through information and communication technology (ICT), making classroom teaching more attractive and bridging the digital divide between rural and urban students.
“The project would soon be placed before the Executive Committee of National Economic Council’s meeting for approval,” said an official of the planning wing under the Ministry of Education (MoE) seeking anonymity.
He said the government-funded project is a step to materialise the plan to build Digital Bangladesh.
Through a survey, the government figured out 20,500 educational institutions for the project those have electricity connection, he stated.
There are over 26,500 registered schools, colleges and madrasas in the country.
Under this project, the teacher on computer subjects will be trained about the operation of the multimedia projectors, said ministry sources, adding that digital contents or subject-based compact discs will also be provided.
Another MoE official said it would be a nice introduction of technology to the students.
“The students will feel the interest when they would see the visual presentation on let’s say how water is produced through a chemical reaction between oxygen and hydrogen,” he explained.
The classroom learning would be more attractive to them, he added.
Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, co-chairman of National Education Policy Formulation Committee, termed the initiative a good one as it goes accordingly with the National Education Policy, 2010 as well as the government policy for Digital Bangladesh.
“The government has to take such initiative to control the digital divide between urban and rural areas,” he said.
Ahmad, also a noted economist, suggested proper training of teachers.
However, Prof Muhammad Zafar Iqbal considers the project a ‘waste of public money’.
The teachers, mostly in the rural areas, do not have much technological background to operate the electronic equipment, said Prof Iqbal, an eminent writer and professor of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology.
What would happen if a bulb of the multimedia projector that costs Tk 25,000 becomes dysfunctional, questioned Prof Iqbal. “Who would replace it,” he added.
The schools in the country are having numerous problems and it would be better if the government spends the money to solve those problems, he said.
