M M Jasim :
Mirzakalu Fazil Madrasa located at Hasannagar union under Borhanuddin upazila of Bhola district, has no computer. The madrasa authorities go to local market for their official computer work.
Like the Mirzakalu Fazil Madrasa about 10 thousand schools, colleges and madrasas across the country have no computer facilities although the government assured computer, internet and multimedia classroom facilities for all educational institutions.
Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS) sources said no computer is used at 27 percent schools, 40 percent madrasas and 11 percent colleges all over the country. There is no computer’s teacher at 39 percent schools in the country.
There is no internet connection at about 9,706 educational institutions. Of them 5,485 are schools, 3911 madrasas and 305 colleges.
A total of 10,308 institutions are deprived of multimedia classrooms. Of them, 5,704 are schools, 3,865 madrasas and 789 colleges.
The school, madrasa and college authorities blamed lack of electricity connection for the absence of computer and multimedia classrooms at their respective institutions.
A teacher of Bagdubi High School wishing anonymity told The New Nation that they applied for electricity connection several times, but they are yet to get it.
Headmaster of Gander Alga High School in Kurigram Azizur Rahman told this correspondent that his school did not get any touch of digitalization as there is no electricity here.
“We cannot provide practical computer knowledge to the students. We also do not get the information of the Education Ministry from the website. And we have to go to different government offices to complete our regular activities like printing, photocopy and others,” the headmaster said.
BANBEIS sources said, at least 5,000 institutions have no electricity connection. Of the institutions, 2,968 are schools, 1,751 madrasas and 141 colleges.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid told The New Nation on Sunday that the ministry initiated its journey for ensuring digital education from the zero level. “We brought 33 thousand educational institutions under digitalization across the country.”
“We are working to bring all the institutions under digitalization. But it is matter of time. It is impossible to do everything overnight,” the minister said.
Director General of Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education Professor SM Wahiduzzaman said some projects of digitalization at the educational institutions are going on. Computer, lab and multimedia will be sent at about 1,500 institutions under Teaching Quality Improvement project.
“We hope that computer, lab and multimedia will be ensured at every institution throughout the country in due course of time,” the DG said.
