Compulsory ICT Course Introduced at National University. With the aim of transforming about 70 percent of Bangladesh’s higher education students into skilled human resources, the National University has introduced a compulsory ICT course at the undergraduate level for the first time. This 4-credit course, launched with the technical assistance of A2I and UNICEF under the ICT Department, will have 3 credits of theory and 1 credit of practical.
This information was given by the Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology on Monday (September 29).
The concerned people said that from the 2024-25 academic year, about 360,000 students in 31 subjects of college-level undergraduate (honors) programs and 4 subjects of on-campus will participate in this course. If another 200,000 students of undergraduate (pass) programs are added from next year, about 560,000 students will come under this course every year. However, the shortage of teachers and the lack of adequate computer labs have been identified as major challenges. A2I and UNICEF are providing technical assistance to address this crisis.
A Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop has already been completed to enhance the capacity of ICT teachers. An online content development program and an orientation program to prepare 90 core trainers will be held in October. 900 teachers from 883 honors colleges will be trained through these trainers in stages.
On the other hand, the National University has said that it plans to introduce ICT courses in the degree (pass) program from next year. About 12,000 teachers will be trained. In addition, there are plans to introduce world-class professional skill development courses for students with the help of Microsoft and Adobe.