The Vision 2041 or Smart Bangladesh consists of the four deciding paradigms- Smart citizen, Smart government, Smart economy, and Smart society. It, thematically, seems to be one notch higher than Digital Bangladesh, and structurally, the next step after Digital Bangladesh. This futuristic idea paves the way for cutting down digital divides, garnering inclusive participation in national building, and adapting to paperless office systems. Here, the aspiration might never be a Herculean burden, as the world has already been experiencing the engulfing presence of robotics beside the human workforce- even from education to medical operations. Hence, time has emerged to characterize the type of educational reality the society of Smart Bangladesh would like to experience by 2041, as education, needless to say, bears on the customization of citizens, society, government, and economy. Thus, Smart Bangladesh aspiration lays, or requires to lay the foundation stone on the basement of education.
The remittance for migrant workers is a strong part of our economy. After the covid-19 recession, the labor market, again, emerges as a prospective source of economic up-rise. Bangladesh experienced 10.74 lakh migrants flocking to overseas jobs in the 2022-23 fiscal year, which is 15.59 % more than the fiscal year 2021-22. However, the issue of concern is that our migrant workers are underpaid in many circumstances due to their lack of variety in skills and proper training.
The conference recently organized by the World Economic Forum lays out Smart education being integrated with 'OBE' (Outcome Based Education), which aligns with education that stirs up earning possibilities through lifelong learning. Learning and earning posit cheek and jowl. Thus, Smart education would like to integrate skills-based learning, which amplifies rates of employability. Thereupon, the education for Smart Bangladesh would like to incorporate the development of the skills necessary for employability locally and overseas. This education should aim to impart teaching so that our learners may easily catch up to the globally thriving labor market, and quickly adapt to the strategies of the transformative manufacturing and marketing companies nationally as well as globally.
Next, the term 'inclusiveness' claims a preponderant bearing since the aura of Smart education by 2041. More often, this term has two dimensions in this case: 'inclusiveness' as a matter of inclusion of all the parties in the learning scenario irrespective of caste, creed, color, and psycho-physical characterization, which leads up to 'no one leaving behind'. Secondly, the 'inclusiveness' calls for the participation of all the stakeholders in the digital race. Here, the demographic, geographic, and topographic dividends are expected to not put forth any barrier to lend an equal share in transferring and receiving digital data.
The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights promulgates inclusive education to all in article 24, which UN member states incorporated in their national policies, and even in their constitutions per se. The article 17 in the Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh has also the provision of unitary, and free education for all, though the provision could not specify the inclusivity of the physically challenged or disabled people. The government has enacted the Rights and Protection of Persons with Disabilities Act-2013, even though the categorization of the disability into mild, semi, and acutely disabled led the strategy formulators and implementers to design special schooling systems for the third category of disability learners. The Ministry of Social Welfare oversees the implementation through the National Foundation of the Disable Persons.
Thereupon, the infrastructural availability necessary for the disability-inclusive learning environment falls short. The mother ministry for the education preserves no dedicated department for the up gradation of the learning environment, crucial for disability-inclusive learning. The report by the UNICEF styled 'Disability-Inclusive Education Practices in Bangladesh' claims that there prevail 40 million diverse learners whereas 9.1% of learners fall under the category of disability- mild, semi, or acute in nature.
The concerning report is that primary education experiences the decreasing trends of the disability learners' enrolment as the UNICEF report on the Bangladesh perspective states that the disability learners' enrolment in primary education was 91,000 in 2011, which declined to 67,693 in 2016. A BBS (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics) report of the National Survey on Persons with Disabilities-2021 sets forth that 41% disabled learners are enrolled in primary mainstream education, and this portion declines to 24% at the secondary level enrolment out of the 4.5 million disabled people in Bangladesh. The vision-2041 can never be attained leaving this chunk behind. Though they are being covered under various specialized educational schemes, they need to be included in mainstream education in order to materialize a unitary system of educational goals.
Then, Smart Bangladesh will have to reign riding over the back of information and communication technology. The educational sector will transform to be integrated through blended learning conception. The intervention of AI, advanced machine language, cloud computing, and so on will lead education to experience a paradigm shift. The educational perspective of Smart Bangladesh must integrate these interventions. Hopelessly true, the gap related to access to smartphones, computers, and the internet in broader aspects prevails in case of demographic situations as the BBS (2022) finds that only 46.2% of rural people have smartphones though 70.2% of urban people are found to have access to the smartphones.
The grave scenario reveals in the case of the internet access for the rural people as they report 29.7% having the access to the internet. Pragmatically, the reshaping of the educational arena for the realization of Smart Bangladesh by 2041 may never see the light of emergence without ensuring the internet access to all irrespective of demographic dividends. The concept of the paperless examination system, blended learning, and globally integrated studentship proceeds the confirmation of the access to devices, the internet, and expertise of maintenance of these devices, and supply of the maintenance cost to all the learners.
After all, the target of Smart Bangladesh in the educational perspective appears facile, though they are ambitious in attainment. The ratification of market-induced learning is crucially necessary, which learning for earning conception demands. A learner has to enable how to use info-technology by operating diverse tools and devices related to education. Education will never be an isolated and localized experience. The borderless education will face every learner up to the global studentship concept, which is discerned to enable the learners for competition globally. This education will be for the rich, the poor, the disabled, the rural, and the urban community. Hence, it calls for a long way to go before the visualization of Smart Bangladesh.
The writer is a Researcher & Editorial Member, International Journal of Recent Innovation in Academic Research
