Dr. Atiur Rahman :
Governor, Bangladesh Bank
It’s very heartening to see that beside numerous government and non-government initiatives and concurrent projects, our young generation is also taking many innovative initiatives to materialize the dream of nation to build ‘Digital Bangladesh’ in the near future. I must appreciate the continuous assistance of our time tested friends from Japan, who are helping us with their expertise as well as opening several doors of financing support to Bangladesh. Today’s event ‘The 1st International Conference on Digital Education’ is a very timely initiative in helping materialize country’s long-standing aspiration of freeing Bangladesh from poverty, creating qualified human capital, wiping out disparity in the field of quality education amongst each segment of the population, irrespective of remote rural and urban areas. I would also like to express my appreciation for the Backbon Foundation’s support for our disadvantaged students and their teachers in distant rural areas in terms of providing quality education lessons and techniques of expert teachers of renowned institutions through multimedia facilities under its ‘e-Education Project’. You have heard Professor Seiichiro and Professor Youshida about the significant impact of E-education on various aspects of quality education. The outcomes are indeed effective and praiseworthy, leading to dynamic learning. This helps students become interactive and creative.
In sync with government’s multifarious efforts of achieving ‘Digital Bangladesh’ by 2021, Bangladesh Bank (BB), the central bank of Bangladesh has already reoriented its entire financial sector to ingrain the ethos of socially responsible financing with the enablement of financial digitization in full scale. Of course, BB is also very cautious about the emanated risks of digitization and their remedial measures. BB has not only digitized its operations by equipping its human resources through several trainings on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW), and various ICT and e-commerce related services but also it has been helping educational institutions, community organizations and non-governmental organizations in developing computer labs, providing laptops, tablets etc. using BB’s own corporate social responsibility fund as well as that of other financial institutions. BB has made it obligatory for the financial institutions to provide one-third of their CSR fund for education purpose including scholarships to the students of disadvantaged families living in remote areas like chars and haors. The educational CSR support was about Taka 234 crore in 2014 and first half of 2015. In addition, BB has provided regulatory space for developing e-commerce, outsourcing, and software development, which are enabling thousands of youths to get jobs and motivating some of them to emerge as successful entrepreneurs. The modernization of payment system has been a breakthrough in our financial transaction including introduction of Automatic Clearing House, Electronic Fund Transfer Network, National Payment Switch and RTGS (pretty soon); BB’s mobile financial services, extensively lauded by international communities, transacting currently Taka 460 crore daily have been reaching off-branch remittance services to the mass people’s doorstep in faster, hassle-free delivery mode. BB’s financial literacy program has also been pursuing a wide range of population segments including the adult and school children.
School banking directives of BB have attracted millions of our young kids to get bank accounts at a nominal cost of Tk.100 only; this initiative is not only helping our school children to get the knowledge of basic banking services but also motivating them to acquire savings habit from the very childhood. ’10 Taka’ accounts for the farmers, street children, cleaners, disadvantaged population segments and even for the third gender are part of BB’s some of the developmental central banking innovations aimed at providing inclusive financial services to the masses.
You will be happy to know that apart from existing apps in BB website, several other apps for getting latest information on priority areas such as women entrepreneurs and green financing will be available very soon. BB’s latest move of engagement with social media such as Facebook and Twitter to disseminate information of its activities and to receive quick feedbacks or queries from the masses, especially from the students is yet another sign of BB’s strict adherence to the motto of fast expanding digital financial inclusion. This is in addition to our on-going CIPC, hotline, dashboard etc. All of BB’s initiatives, well coordinated with its mandated objective of monetary and financial stabilities, are aimed to help Government achieve its Vision 2021 and hence, materialize its dream of making Bangladesh an upper middle income country by 2030. For that to happen, improving human capital and reducing economic vulnerabilities are crucial.
Over and above, we must enhance the speed of our inclusive growth process. And for all this, there is no way out except quality education for all. We welcome any private sector and non-governmental engagement to come forward with such high spirit of reaching quality education to the disadvantaged students in each corner of the country, who suffer from lack of qualified teachers and teaching materials.
I would like to take the privilege to urge the attending Japanese friends to continue their generous supports to our NGOs and other initiatives for expanding the scope of inclusive, digitized quality education campaign.
Bangladesh, the land of ample opportunities and hope, is on board to create countrywide tech savvy young generation to reap the highest benefit of our current demographic dividends and to eradicate vicious circle of poverty; I believe government’s endeavors will get its best outcome only when people like you extend your able hands to lift our poor human capital to higher level of skills.
Governor, Bangladesh Bank
It’s very heartening to see that beside numerous government and non-government initiatives and concurrent projects, our young generation is also taking many innovative initiatives to materialize the dream of nation to build ‘Digital Bangladesh’ in the near future. I must appreciate the continuous assistance of our time tested friends from Japan, who are helping us with their expertise as well as opening several doors of financing support to Bangladesh. Today’s event ‘The 1st International Conference on Digital Education’ is a very timely initiative in helping materialize country’s long-standing aspiration of freeing Bangladesh from poverty, creating qualified human capital, wiping out disparity in the field of quality education amongst each segment of the population, irrespective of remote rural and urban areas. I would also like to express my appreciation for the Backbon Foundation’s support for our disadvantaged students and their teachers in distant rural areas in terms of providing quality education lessons and techniques of expert teachers of renowned institutions through multimedia facilities under its ‘e-Education Project’. You have heard Professor Seiichiro and Professor Youshida about the significant impact of E-education on various aspects of quality education. The outcomes are indeed effective and praiseworthy, leading to dynamic learning. This helps students become interactive and creative.
In sync with government’s multifarious efforts of achieving ‘Digital Bangladesh’ by 2021, Bangladesh Bank (BB), the central bank of Bangladesh has already reoriented its entire financial sector to ingrain the ethos of socially responsible financing with the enablement of financial digitization in full scale. Of course, BB is also very cautious about the emanated risks of digitization and their remedial measures. BB has not only digitized its operations by equipping its human resources through several trainings on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW), and various ICT and e-commerce related services but also it has been helping educational institutions, community organizations and non-governmental organizations in developing computer labs, providing laptops, tablets etc. using BB’s own corporate social responsibility fund as well as that of other financial institutions. BB has made it obligatory for the financial institutions to provide one-third of their CSR fund for education purpose including scholarships to the students of disadvantaged families living in remote areas like chars and haors. The educational CSR support was about Taka 234 crore in 2014 and first half of 2015. In addition, BB has provided regulatory space for developing e-commerce, outsourcing, and software development, which are enabling thousands of youths to get jobs and motivating some of them to emerge as successful entrepreneurs. The modernization of payment system has been a breakthrough in our financial transaction including introduction of Automatic Clearing House, Electronic Fund Transfer Network, National Payment Switch and RTGS (pretty soon); BB’s mobile financial services, extensively lauded by international communities, transacting currently Taka 460 crore daily have been reaching off-branch remittance services to the mass people’s doorstep in faster, hassle-free delivery mode. BB’s financial literacy program has also been pursuing a wide range of population segments including the adult and school children.
School banking directives of BB have attracted millions of our young kids to get bank accounts at a nominal cost of Tk.100 only; this initiative is not only helping our school children to get the knowledge of basic banking services but also motivating them to acquire savings habit from the very childhood. ’10 Taka’ accounts for the farmers, street children, cleaners, disadvantaged population segments and even for the third gender are part of BB’s some of the developmental central banking innovations aimed at providing inclusive financial services to the masses.
You will be happy to know that apart from existing apps in BB website, several other apps for getting latest information on priority areas such as women entrepreneurs and green financing will be available very soon. BB’s latest move of engagement with social media such as Facebook and Twitter to disseminate information of its activities and to receive quick feedbacks or queries from the masses, especially from the students is yet another sign of BB’s strict adherence to the motto of fast expanding digital financial inclusion. This is in addition to our on-going CIPC, hotline, dashboard etc. All of BB’s initiatives, well coordinated with its mandated objective of monetary and financial stabilities, are aimed to help Government achieve its Vision 2021 and hence, materialize its dream of making Bangladesh an upper middle income country by 2030. For that to happen, improving human capital and reducing economic vulnerabilities are crucial.
Over and above, we must enhance the speed of our inclusive growth process. And for all this, there is no way out except quality education for all. We welcome any private sector and non-governmental engagement to come forward with such high spirit of reaching quality education to the disadvantaged students in each corner of the country, who suffer from lack of qualified teachers and teaching materials.
I would like to take the privilege to urge the attending Japanese friends to continue their generous supports to our NGOs and other initiatives for expanding the scope of inclusive, digitized quality education campaign.
Bangladesh, the land of ample opportunities and hope, is on board to create countrywide tech savvy young generation to reap the highest benefit of our current demographic dividends and to eradicate vicious circle of poverty; I believe government’s endeavors will get its best outcome only when people like you extend your able hands to lift our poor human capital to higher level of skills.
