Finance Minister: 650 primary schools to get 3 digital classrooms each

Steps will be taken to set up digital classrooms in three classrooms in 650 primary schools in disadvantaged areas of the country, said Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali on Thursday.

“Children are the future leaders of this country. Our main goal is to build a smart Bangladesh and therefore steps must be taken from now on to establish this concept in the heart of every child,” said the minister.

Taking this into consideration, steps have been taken to modernize the national primary education framework and its evaluation system. Besides, more emphasis is being given on technology-based teaching to familiarize children with the use of technology at the elementary stage of education, he said while placing budget for FY25 on Thursday.

More than 100,000 laptops, multimedia projectors, sound-systems with internet have been distributed and multimedia classrooms have been launched in government primary schools. Moreover, the program of setting up modern digital classroom and language lab in one school in each upazila has been taken, said the finance minister.

“Topics like information technology and coding have been included in the syllabus from 2022 onwards in primary class science textbooks with the aim of teaching programming knowledge to future generations so that they can adapt with the digital technologies to meet the challenges of the 4th industrial revolution.”

Along with the formal education, the government has been conducting mass education programs and has already achieved significant success, he said.

Some 2,054,763 individuals have been provided with basic literacy through 35,000 learning centres in 114 upazilas of 60 districts on the occasion of the birth centenary celebrations of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in FY2022-23.

Apart from this, the program to bring back the dropout children to the mainstream by ensuring education through non-formal education system is underway and will continue in the future as well.

Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali presented the proposed budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year amounting to Tk797,000 crore (Tk7.97 trillion) in parliament on Thursday.

This was his first budget unveiling and the first budget after the reelection of the Awami League government in January.