DHAKA: Primary and Mass Education Minister Mostafizur Rahman on Saturday said multimedia classrooms have been set up in 20,500 secondary and 1,515 government primary schools across the country facilitating modern-method teaching for 4.2 million students.

The minister divulged the information at a function marking the launch of a study report titled ‘Mapping ICT in Education Initiatives in Bangladesh’ by Save the Children.

The function was told that the classrooms have been equipped with laptops, projectors and internet modems, and the teachers imparted training on the use of classroom facilities for enhancing teaching and learning.

The study report highlighted the ICT initiatives in education by the government, local and international NGOs and the private sector throughout Bangladesh.

The minister further said though the government has firm commitment to improve quality of education, expected results cannot be attained due to ‘lack of sincerity’ of different quarters involved in the sector.

The study found that ICT is being used, to some extent, for e-content development, teacher training, web portal creation for e-content sharing and teachers’ networking, and also in community learning centres for underprivileged groups.

But it is not being widely used to support student assessment, e-learning, programme monitoring and evaluation.

Primary and mass education ministry joint secretary Faizul Kabir, policy advisor to Access to Information (A2I) Programme at PMO Anir Chowdhury, and Save the Children program development and quality director Sharon Hauser and senior education adviser M Habibur Rahman, among others, spoke on the occasion.

Representatives of local and international NGOs and private organizations and government officials also attended the ceremony.

According to Save the Children, the information gathered in the study will help exploration and review of the ICT in education with a view to guiding strategic thinking about the use of technology in Bangladesh’s education sector.

BDST: 1827 HRS, JAN 31, 2015