Can we copy exactly 24 Govt schools of Dhaka City to 48?

The authorities of the 24 Dhaka city schools have sold 36,532 forms against 7,479 seats available for admission to different classes in 2008 academic year. The 24 schools are divided into three groups — Group A, B and C — on the basis of their location and quality of education to some extent.

The Group A schools are: Government Laboratory High School, Mirpur Government High School, Motijheel Government Girls’ High School, Khilgaon Government High School, Nawabpur Government High School, New Government Girls’ High School, Islamia Government High School and Mohammadpur Government High School.

The Group B schools are: Motijheel Government Boys’ High School, Narinda Government High School, Government Muslim High School, Banglabazar Government Girls’ High School, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Government Boys’ School, Government Bigyan College Adjacent High School, Tejgaon, Dhanmondi Government Girls’ High School and Dhanmondi Qamrunnesa Government Girls’ High School.

The Group C schools are: Armanitola Government High School, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Government Girls’ High School, Dhaka Collegiate School, Ganabhaban Government High School, Tikatuli Qamrunnisa Government Girls’ School, Tejgaon Government Girls’ High School, Tejgaon Government High School and Dhanmondi Government Boys’ High School.

The successful candidates of the admission tests to 24 public schools in the Dhaka City have completed their admission on January 29 and 31

Now the “admission war” to get into a good school is over, we as parents, educators and administrators can take a deep breathe. We may ask ourselves “can we do better?” It would be unfair to say that we do not have socially responsible business community or NGO, not to mention social development partner in the city. Than why are we not getting it?

Competition is good; it is the prerequisite of better performance in every segment of life. However, 36,532 applications against 7,479 seats is not competition. It is a problem.

In traditional business concept this would open up a tremendous opportunity as demand is 500% of the supply. However, this is not a business sector as we know it. If this were a business sector than it could be best explained in latest buzz word of “social business”.

There may be a lot of teachers in these so called “Group A, B, C” school who would love to take the challenges of replicating the achievements’ in a new franchise branch of these schools. A simple formulation of growth path for their careers might encourage those educators to thrive for the higher goals. I am sure there are Social entrepreneurs in the city who are highly enthusiastic to contribute in education sector.

The demand is here, the entrepreneurs’ are standing by only thing is missing here is a framework of policy. Simplier the policies are, better the performance will it bring.

I would urge the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education to shed some light on this. Ministry of education may open up the path to “social business entrepreneurs’” to capitalize the franchising opportunity in the high school education sector.

There are only 317 secondary schools available in all over Bangladesh are govt out of a total 18183 secondary schools. What it means is that privatization is not the issue here. The real reason is the “Brand power”. “Copy exactly” will utilize that energy into result.

The best qualified for this job would be the existing teachers who are running these “Star” schools, the “Group A, B, C” schools. Can civil society, policy makers, entrepreneurs’, administrators as well as concern citizen come together and empower the “Stars” of the :Group A, B, C schools to use “Brand Power” and “copy exactly”?

Lat us take a baby step. Can we turn “Government Laboratory High School” to Government Laboratory High School 1 and Government Laboratory High School 2.
Split the teachers into 2 and bring new graduated from University to fill the other half?

To ease the nightmare of the parents, can we copy exactly 24 Govt schools of Dhaka City to 48?

links to my comments in national daily news

I would like to share some of my letters, essay, comments to the national printed daily news media.

Broadband http://www.newagebd.com/2007/may/24/fb.html
Dream Team: http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/13/d702131107111.htm
An expatriate’s concern http://www.newagebd.com/2007/may/16/fb.html

Rice reserve: http://www.newagebd.com/2007/aug/20/fb.html
Rice Imports (a follow up): http://www.newagebd.com/2008/jan/09/fb.html
Electricity for farm pumps: http://www.newagebd.com/2008/jan/31/fb.html

Voter ID http://www.newagebd.com/2007/apr/27/fb.html
Funding for Voter ID: http://www.newagebd.com/2007/may/28/fb.html

Export of nurse: http://www.newagebd.com/2008/jan/03/fb.html
Readymade Garment Industry unrest and owners responsibility:
http://www.newagebd.com/2008/jan/08/fb.html

The admission war: http://www.newagebd.com/2008/feb/01/fb.html
Education: Let's take Bangladesh to the next level, http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000006/PISNODTL000000000143.pdf
Teachers, Students and rule of law: http://www.newagebd.com/2008/jan/18/fb.html

Human Capital:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000005/PISNODTL000000000099.pdf

Broadband Vision- A perspective : http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000004/PISNODTL000000000075.pdf

Bangladeshi wins UN environment award: http://www.newagebd.com/2008/feb/02/fb.html
Ill-gotten wealth: http://www.newagebd.com/2008/feb/08/fb.html
Enjoy ....

Wonderful time with Dr Yunus

19th January 2008

Bangali community of Portland enjoyed a wonderful casual community event with Nobel laureate Dr Yunus at the PCC, Rock Creek of the Silicon Forest of USA.

Portland American community of Bangali decent are proud to nurture there bangali heritage, culture and family values. Dr Yunus talked about his Grameen experience and touched on his recent book about social business. He is on a book tour traveling cities all over the USA .

The reception started with a festive welcome by the children of all ages. Even some toddlers are there with their mom's. Children were dressed traditional red or bright colored saris. Dr Yunus exchanged greetings with everybody one at a time and hug and kissed the children.

During his short speech in Bangla, he talked about how the grameen concept has been spreading more then 100 countries around the world. He also talked about his experience of working in Latin America as well as here in USA with the partnership with Clintons . He took some questions from the floor in an open setting and children asked most of the questions. This community is well known for fostering children oriented activities.

Later in the program Dr Yunus signed every book purchased in the event and posed for every request of photo session. There were around 200 participants at the event. He gave ample time to meet every family and take a photo with them, signed their Books, talk to the children and their parents. The community was humbled by his gestures.

The program ended with a pizza party; however some of the community members cooked their favorite Bengali dishes for the chief guest. During a conversation Dr Yunus mention that he enjoyed the casual setting of the event. According to him it is the best Bengali community event so far during this book tour.

What you like to ask Dr Yunus from Portland, OR

I am very glad to know that Dr Yunus opened up his schedule to meet Portland Bangali. He is in a book tour to promote his latest book. We thank him and his book publisher for giving us this opportunity.

In his book, CREATING A WORLD WITHOUT POVERTY, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus outlines his vision for a new business model that combines the power of free markets with the quest for a more humane world -- and tells the inspiring stories of companies that are doing this work today.
http://www.mcmenamins.com/index.php?loc=9&id=1117&eventid=56532

Listen to him on his crusade on proverty: http://www.dotsub.com/films/creatinga/index.php

During the weekend I called my friend Saiful in Austin TX and asked anything new happening in their community. He regretted that he missed Dr Yunus's speech that day due to some family commitments. Later that day I received a forwarded email informing Dr Yunus coming to Portland from Hamim Bhai, a fervent web researcher, apart from his daily job of designing microprocessor circuits. In that email our local contact, a PhD student at Portland State University find out, that Dr Yunus continuing his book tour in Portland. This started a race of emails to define and plan something from the community. 10-15 community members exchanged their opinions.

After 40+ emails we reached a structure.I would ask my community members to use the comment section of this post to enlist their questions to Dr Yunus. As Mothar Bhai put it "We want to hear what his vision is about Bangladesh and what are the obstacles to reach there and how we can help and contribute – in a very informal way, like as if he is one of us, sitting there and talking with us."

Our friend Shaestagir, used his charisma to get PCC in few hours notice and integrated the community opinion to a informal program. We all know about the Grameen and the Noble peace, here is what I would like to Ask and let him talk about:

His learning of Grameen (may be technology side of it); what his feeling about another Yunus? What future holds?

His view of Leader and Institution? Is it a Chicken and egg issue or catch 22? How do we create institutions that are self correcting and self-sustaining in Business as well as Politics (just explain from your personal experience of political initiatives) . What we have in Bangladesh is a constant search of an institutions from leadership, be it Supreme Court, chief advisor of CTG, Head of ACC, Head of major political parties Hasina or Khaleda and the Noble peace winner.

A lot of NRB made a significant development in Bangladesh in recent years, You, Iqbal Z Quadir (Gonophone/Grameen Phone CEO), Controversial Abdul Awal Minto, Kazi Group, Pride Garments are from USA, last week Dr Abed in genome scientist. What is the common driving force except the love of the country making this happen?

Please keep this list grow using comment section to enter your question.

Obama an audacity of change

The win in Iowa may have surprised many to the extend that is hard to digest. How come a corn country could phantom the need of a monsoon rain desperately need America now?

The trident of democratic candidates reaching to the hearts and minds of the democrats are very competitive. The tiny edge is all that matters. Albeit the country needs a change in direction, need a fresh start in the economic sector. This election should have one thing on top of all agenda and that is economy.

After eight years of Clintons economic boom and then eight years of Bushes economic doom, “it is economy stupid” more than ever. What makes USA a USA, is its USD$.
This is not in a strongest of footing. Science, innovation, efficiency and leadership needed to get that momentum going in the economic sector.

We all hoped when there was a power shift in the capitol last year; but there was so little that has been accomplished. However it stopped continuous issue of blank check to the executive branch.

Next thing after economy should be social security. The mathematics is already done. It is just a matter of pulling the best minds and fix it along with the tax structure.

Then follows the healthcare system. It is a shame for the most powerful and richest country of the universe not to have a basic right medical support irrespective of their income, race, origin or occupation.

Going Green mindset may bring tremendous potential –a fun thought

It may sound like I am a dreamer without a sense of reality. Because what I am going to propose now may blow your mind away. Your response would be “are you nuts?”

We have limited energy in USA. Think about the basic principle of energy. It changes forms and produce something that we want.

We are a fat nation and see how much energy we are burning to burn calories from our body? Now if you can develop a device to conserve that energy and store it, this little accumulation may become a supplementary source of energy. Just bare with me for few more sentences.

We plug in treadmill, elliptical or bicycle with the power outlet to have them function properly. Why can’t we design the same functional machines without the electricity? Moreover the machine we will design will produce energy and store it while we exercise to burn calories.

For example, in one household, let’s say there are two adults that are over weight and would like to do exercise regularly for 30 minutes each totaling one hour of physical activity in that household. Let us assume for simplicity we install a simple miniature windmill like power generator in his backyard. We need to setup the equipment such a way that the person at home can use it as a bicycle riding or rowing or elliptical machine. Thereby it is a win-win situation; we store some energy and burn some calories to stay fit.

Millions of people jogging everyday and now they would have another option to loose weight and store energy to use. This scheme along with the solar paneling, energy efficient appliances, little bit of every possible way of going green may reverse the process of global warming.