Pete Sharma Associates

Bangla Desh

Posted by Pete on 16 January, 2012

It’s hard to overstate just how amazing  this visit to Bangla Desh was.

Tuesday saw the British Council Conference on the Innovative use of ICT in Education. I had heard about the Connecting Classrooms concept, and here it was brought to life by a series of enthusiastic, eye-opening presentations from teachers and educationalists across the country. It was great to hear about the social projects and meet such inspirational department heads.

You can read a lot more about the day, as well as the projects and presentations, at:

http://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/ict-conference-secondary-schools-bangladesh

It was the first time I had given a presentation which was translated, bit by bit – thanks to Ahsan for a great job!

On Wednesday, I headed out into the rural area north of Dhaka to see ICT in action. The teachers face some incredible challenges: will students leave their studies to become child brides? will students come in the afternoon, or be kept at home to help the family earn money?

We visited a school where one of the classroom was kitted out with a laptop computer and internet access. The internet in the class we saw was being used to enrich the learning from the course book, bringing the concept of volcanoes to life.

In the second school, the only computer was being used for admin. The ICT teachers deliver their curriculum without a computer…..

Truly memorable; humbling; inspiring. I’m sure I’ll return…….