Sheikh Hasina inaugurating multimedia classrooms through videoconferencing in Dhaka yesterday
By Mizan Rahman
Dhaka
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated multimedia classrooms in 1,000 secondary and primary schools to bring a change in the century-old traditional teacher-centred learning system through a videoconferencing at the Prime Minister’s Office in Dhaka yesterday.
Speaking on the occasion, the prime minister expressed the hope that ‘Digital Bangladesh’ could be built much before the year 2021 if the present trend of digitisation continued.
She called upon the private sector to come forward so that multimedia classrooms could be established in all educational institutions to benefit
thousands of students.
“I dream of that day, when giving classroom education would be possible by using multimedia in each classroom of every educational institution. At that time, there will be no disparity in acquiring knowledge between village and urban educational institutions,” she said.
Hasina said ‘multimedia classroom’ is a digital edition of the teaching method, and this modern teaching method is being applied in those developed countries which are advanced in education.
To achieve the goal, she said, a multimedia classroom will be set up in each of 20,500 secondary schools and madrasas under public-private partnership (PPP).
“We have established multimedia classroom at primary-level model schools and through this, the students can gather the latest knowledge of the world in different subjects and make themselves eligible for world competition,” she said.
UNDP-funded Support to Digital Bangladesh (A2I), Banglalink and Intel Corporation, a reputed multinational semiconductor chip maker company, are providing support to set up multimedia classroom which are being considered as a tool for the students to come out from memorising
knowledge.
Using the PPP model, the multimedia classrooms have been launched at 500 secondary and 500 primary schools to support the education ministry’s initiative to set up 20,500 multimedia classrooms by the end of the next year, an official said.
“The introduction of multimedia classrooms and teacher-led content development will bring about a radical change in teaching and learning”, said Nazrul Islam Khan, national project director of Support to Digital Bangladesh (A2I).
Textbooks can be explained in more friendly ways through pictures, animations, and videos in multimedia classrooms, using the information and communications technology, he said.