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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the country had made good progress in its efforts towards building 'Digital Bangladesh' during the last three years as pledged in the ruling party's election manifesto.
“We've achieved many successes to this end,” she said, while inaugurating through videoconferencing from her office the multimedia classrooms and digital academic contents developed by teachers.
Hasina said the education system had made a step forward towards the digitalisation goal with the inauguration of 1,000 multimedia secondary and primary school classrooms across the country.
The premier opened the multimedia classrooms in 1,000 schools and the teacher-led contents by pressing a computer button.
She expressed the hope that 'Digital Bangladesh' could be built much ahead of 2021 if the present trend of digitalisation continues.
Hasina said, “Only the information technology can quickly reach the multipurpose flow of development to the grassroots level at a minimum cost.”
“ICT can connect rural people not only with upazila and district headquarters but also with the entire globe,” she added.
She said multimedia classroom was the digital version of teaching method, which was widely used in the developed world. The government was attaching priority to ICT education and all books up to secondary level had been transformed into e-books which were also helping the expatriate students, she added.
She said the teachers were the main medium of reaching knowledge to the learners and they were playing an important role in building an educated nation with digital knowledge.
Hasina called upon the private sector to come forward so that multimedia classrooms could be established in all educational institutions of the country very fast.
She asked the teachers to get habituated with the use of ICT and learn the techniques of developing colourful academic contents and build the future generation enriched with science and technology-based education.
Hasina called upon the teachers, students, guardians and ICT experts to work unitedly to build a hunger- and poverty-free prosperous Digital Bangladesh and thus materialise the dream of Bangabandhu.
Terming the teachers and students the pioneers of the country's advancement, she said the government would establish digital classrooms -- at least one in 20,500 secondary schools and madrasas each - by next year.
“It'll help raise the standard of education to international level and remove the discrimination of teaching methods between rural and urban areas as the students could acquire latest knowledge of the world on various subjects to build themselves as worthy and skilled human resources to survive in the global competition,” she added.
The premier said her government had already introduced e-governance, e-commerce e-health, e-education, and e-service, and the scope of these services are expanding day by day.
Later, she exchanged views with the students of Reazuddin Pilot High School of Debidwar, Comilla, Monirampur Government Girls' School, Jessore, and Tungipara GT Model High School of Gopalganj districts, and the teachers of Rangpur Teachers Training College.
Presided over by Primary and Mass Education Minister Dr Afsarul Amin, the function was also addressed by National Project Director of Access to Information Programme NI Khan and Group CEO of Orascom Telecom Ahmed Abu Doma.