Mr. Mustofa Kamal a young dedicated teacher in Brahmanbaria High School, has been teaching since 1992. Computers always fascinated him and he wanted to learn how to use them. He was fortunate to get some opportunities to take a few short courses on basic computing from Tata Consultancy, Delhi in India, NATRAMS, Bangladesh etc and availed those. But he was loosing the skills he learned from these courses, because he did not have access to a computer. Although in his school there were two desktop computers but it did not work properly because of technical problems and no body around did not know how to fix the problems.
Mr. Mosatafa Kamal Instructed to the Students
In 2007 VAB-NJ (www.vabonline.org/vabnj) and D.Net (www.dnet.org.bd) set up a computer learning center (CLC) under Computer Literacy Program (CLP) sponsored by Mr. Salahudin Shahriar, Mechanicsburg, PA 17050, USA, in memory of his mother Begum Shamsun Nahar (former Head Mistress Kamrunessa Govt. Girls High School, Dhaka) at this school. Mr. Mustofa Kamal was selected as a trainer of CLP. He got fourteen days of hands-on training on basic computing (Esho Computer Shekhi) from D.Net, and he began to teach computer to the students of his school under the CLP curriculum after the regular school hours. He was enjoying the interactive teaching and at the same time was enhancing his own computer skills. In 2008 D.Net provided internet connection to the school in collaboration with Relief International. The World Wide Web opened the world to him and he used the web to tap into the vast treasure of educational material to enhance his own knowledge and at the same time provide update and relevant information to the students for their education. He also used the internet for reading news papers, virtually visiting places, learning English and keeping in touch with the modern world.
By doing this he learned that advanced countries provide training, skills development courses for the teachers of the third world countries to enhance their skills. Using “search engine” he searched for ‘Teacher Exchange Program’ and found many links, web sites, addresses, contact information etc. Sitting in his small CLP computer lab, he visited one such site and applied for a course and followed the instructions properly mentioned in the web site. The six-week long course entitled: TEA” (Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program) under the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (www.unl.edu) , USA was offered under a programme of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States and administrated by IREX (International Research and Exchange Board, www.irex.org) His application was accepted and he will be flying to USA in coming September 2009 to attend the course at the University of Nebraska. All the expenditure will be borne by the State Department of USA.
At present Mustofa Kamal is the Assistant Headmaster of his school. He is very happy for getting the opportunity to take the course in USA. This program will help him to know about the educational system in USA and this experience will help him to do better things for his own country.
Brahmanbaria High School
VAB-NJ and D.Net created the scope to use modern technology for Mustofa Kamal and he himself did the rest. At the present there are 107 CLCs under CLP in 39 districts in Bangladesh. Among them 50 CLCs are connected with internet. In all these CLCs students receive hands on training on basic computing (on the module “Esho Computer Shekhi”) and D.Net stays on top by always keeping in touch with the schools to ensure that all the computers remain in working condition and the school management are playing their role properly for the success of CLP.
So CLP has, among other objectives, been able to broaden the horizon and scope for the individuals (both teachers and students) participating in this program. If the teachers of the CLCs work for their personal development by taking advantage of the CLP initiative, opportunities are there, Mustofa Kamal is a living example.
