ICT Teachers Training

There are approximately 3000 lecturers in all the colleges around the country to teach ICT courses in 11th and 12th grade students. The ICT course is comparatively new member of the higher secondary education curriculum. It is often said that ICT is key for the country to close the gap of digital divide with the rest of the world.

There are 68017 college teachers in Bangladesh according to the directorate of secondary and higher education’s most recent data available to the public in its website. Out of them 58508 (86%) are from private college (non-government). Among them only 4% are ICT.

I am sure there are tens of thousands of students enroll in these highly demanding ICT course and are not being successful to pass satisfactorily. There may be multiple reasons for that failure. However, lack of training for those helpless lecturers is the most intriguing one. I salute them for their courage to enter into the classroom with very little resourses. Not to mention their no access to any up-to-date knowledgebase of ICT teaching material.

These teachers are the key to our success for the future. What they produce are the asset of the nation and its development in the era of information technology. Therefore it is imperative that they teach a quality ICT curriculum. It is our responsibility to educate them and strengthen them with the best of knowledgebase. We should provide them the quality study material. We need to ensure that their understanding of the subject matter is nothing but the best and current.

Microsoft and Intel Corporation have many programs for teachers’ training to teach to the future. These programs are win-win for everybody. Not to mention that more people learn to use computer, more computer will be sold and both Microsoft and Intel Corporation will make money; however a noble cause being get fulfilled for those developing countries who could not provide proper training for those teachers. Students also get benefited as they acquire quality education in their disposal.

These two global companies delivered tens of millions of trained teachers in India, Vietnam, and Brazil.

If you just look at the evolution of microprocessor from last year to this year, this itself justify a training or a “touch point” for the ICT teachers. Because these duel core, core2 duo, multi-core products are coming to the shelves of the computer stores and students are buying those. At least our teachers get that knowledge upgrade to deal with those students. This kind of training could be avoided if our ICT teachers were connected to the information super highway through broadband.

To give a jump start, I have a training proposal. There are several authors of the ICT text books offered their voluntary service. For the rest of the project rough estimation, to train 3000 teachers from all over the country for a week of training in Dhaka could cost around USD$ 50,000, less then USD$ 20 per teacher. Major cell phone operators or ICT companies may tap this opportunities to extend their’s brand’s good will and future market opportunities. Moreover global corporations looking business opportunities may as well get involved.