The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Mohammed Bin-Rashid Al-Maktoum Knowledge Foundation (MBRF) have jointly disclosed the 2020 Global Knowledge Index (GKI) recently where Bangladesh has ranked 112th out of 138 countries globally. The country scored 35.9 which is well below the global average of 46.7 and is the lowest among South Asian countries trailing behind India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan.
The Global Knowledge Index (GKI) is a designed method of measuring knowledge performance of countries based on 133 variables and some seven criteria including pre-university education, technical and vocational education and training, higher education, research, development and innovation, information and communication technology, economy and the general enabling environment.
Bangladesh must not lag behind other nations in today’s science and technology-driven society in respect of developing its human capital. The ability to survive and thrive in this new era would depend a lot on how better Bangladesh is efficient to educate and train its people in the different fields of knowledge and thus turn them into skilled human resource. We deeply hope, policymakers and authorities concerned of our country would adopt strategies to sustain knowledge and bloom it as the main component for establishing a ‘Knowledge Economy’.
Wares Ali Khan
Sadar, Narsingdi
