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Linking Young Minds Together
     Volume 2 Issue 18 | May 13, 2007|


  
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Feature



S. Mokammel Hossain

A quiet revolution has been stirring among the aspiring IT professionals in our country since early 2003. Confident and single-minded in attitude, these young people can be seen securing well-paid IT-related jobs in numerous organizations in Dhaka and Chittagong. They had only recently successfully completed an intensive IT training programme, but if left to themselves, none of these individuals' personal financial condition would have allowed them to bear the cost of the IT training courses which had brought them decent jobs in the field of information technology.

All of these young professionals are the recipients of IDB-BISEW IT Scholarship. A unique and groundbreaking project, the IDB-BISEW IT Scholarship Project (IISP) is more than just a scholarship or a bursary in the traditional sense of the word. It is an educational network composed of approximately thirty IT training institutes, a full scale R&D cell dedicated for training-resource and curriculum development and an administrative body headed by the management office of IDB-BISEW. Each year, under this project, approximately 1,200 applicants are awarded scholarships that enable them to undergo professional IT training in the foremost training organizations of the country. These full-time training programmes range from 8 to 16 months in duration and equip the trainees with cutting edge IT skills, which in vast majority of cases lead to rewarding careers in various organizations home and abroad. This article attempts to describe the principal components of the project, the factors responsible for its success and the impact it is having on the individuals and organizations coming into contact with the project.

An educational “Wakf” or endowment, Islamic Development Bank-Bangladesh Islamic Solidarity Educational Wakf (IDB-BISEW) came into being following an agreement between the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and the Government of Bangladesh. As per its founding charter (Deed of Wakf), one of the fundamental objectives of the IDB-BISEW is to provide financial assistance from the rental revenue generated from IDB Bhaban towards the education of the Bangladeshi Muslim student populace and to gradually transform the large population into skilled human resource by strengthening their technical capability to use existing and emerging technologies. IDB-BISEW decided to fund and execute a major scholarship programme.

“….I completed my MA in English literature for lack of better alternatives. But the prospect and realities of working as a teacher of English began to depress me. I gradually became aware of prospects in IT. So I grabbed the chance when the IDB-BISEW IT Scholarship Project gave me an opportunity to switch careers. This project has really made my dream come true…”
A. M. M. Khairul Anam, System Support Officer

All candidates, regardless of their previous educational attainments, have to take part in an aptitude test. No matter what academic background they possess, all trainees have to undergo an eighty-hour (80 hour) crash course on Computer Fundamentals.

Class sessions last for four hours each day, six days a week. Lesson delivery is through instructor-led sessions. Trainee achievement is assessed and reported against industry competency standards as prescribed in the Delivery and Assessment Guide provided to the TSPs.

“…. One of the major strengths of the IDB-BISEW IT Scholarship Programme is the assessment system used throughout the training. The rigorous and periodic assessment ensured that in order to pass the examinations we had to apply consistent effort on our studies throughout the course…”
Md. Arif Zaman, Business Development Executive

IT-related job vacancies as advertised in major newspapers (dailies) were closely monitored and studied to fine-tune the content of the training courses included in the project. This is an on-going activity and yields extremely useful information, which is periodically used in determining the course contents and pinpointing the system skills and software tools to be included in each training course.

The Information & Communication Technology (ICT) industry is well known for its rapid change and development. Emerging business opportunities, along with its accompanying technological changes, may necessitate inclusion of new training courses in order to capitalize on the human resource needs. The IDB-BISEW IT Scholarship Project is designed to be flexible in its choice of training courses and the mechanism for implementing newly devised courses.

 

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