ICT reaches remote community learning centres: Save the Children

A report finds that the use of ICT in the education sector has reached as far as remote community learning centres in Bangladesh.

An international NGO, Save the Children released the report on Saturday that mapped the use of ICT by the government, local and international NGOs and the private sector across Bangladesh for educational purposes.

Information and communication technology sector got a boost since 2009 when the Awami League came to power with a pledge to build a ‘Digital Bangladesh’.

Thousands of classrooms have been equipped with laptops, projectors, and Internet modems and the teachers have been trained on how to use those.

Primary and Mass Education Minister Mostafizur Rahman, speaking at the report launching at a Dhaka hotel, said multimedia classrooms were set up in 20,500 secondary and 1,515 government primary schools across Bangladesh.

The initiative helped 4.2 million students to avail modern-method of teaching, the minister said, according to a Save the Children media release.

The report found that ICT was being used, “to some extent, for e-content development, teacher training, web portal creation for e-content sharing and teachers’ networking, and also in community learning centres for underprivileged groups”.

“But it is not being widely used to support student assessment, e-learning, programme monitoring and evaluation,” the report observed.

Save the Children said the report would help the education sector review the current trend and develop future strategies.

Primary and Mass Education Ministry Joint Secretary Faizul Kabir, Policy Advisor to Access to Information (A2I) Programme at PMO Anir Chowdhury, and Save the Children Program Development and Quality Director Sharon Hauser and Senior Education Adviser M Habibur Rahman, among others, were present during the launching.