Robotics in schools

The government is planning to introduce robotics at the secondary level in schools on a pilot basis from next year in an effort to equip young learners for the technology-driven world.

The education ministry, in partnership with Dhaka University’s robotics and mechatronics engineering department, has already started the ground work to this end.

Under the pilot scheme starting next year, students from grade-VI to VIII of around eight schools in Dhaka and other divisional cities will be given basic lessons on robots, its functions, and applications.

“In this era of industrial revolution, we need to prepare our younger generation so that they can keep pace with their peers across the world. This subject will help them understand the technological advancements happening globally,” Deputy Minister for Education Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury Nowfel told The Daily Star recently.

He said the ministry held meetings with several international firms and found one Chinese company, UBTECH Robotics, which had experience in developing curriculum for robotics in Vietnam and Malaysia and organising trainings in several countries.

Recently, the company gave a demonstration to the government officials, showing them how the two countries were teaching the subject to children, he said.

“We’ve gone through their books and syllabus. We will start the process of translating the books to our language,” said Mohibul.

The teachers of the institutions will also be trained, said the junior minister, adding, “If the pilot succeeds, we will introduce it as a course from 2021 in some [other] selected schools in large cities.”

The robotics and mechatronics engineering department of DU will be giving the technical support, he said.

Prof Lafifa Jamal, chairperson of the robotics and mechatronics engineering department, said they would evaluate the pilot thoroughly and if it was successful, the National Curriculum and Textbook Board would publish a book on the subject.

“We also have plans to create a resource pool which can help us train teachers on robotics and artificial intelligence,” she said.

There is also a plan to develop robotics clubs at the school level, said Lafifa, also an organiser of Bangladesh Robot Olympiad.

Experts welcomed the move but stressed on providing training to the teachers and building logistics to make it a success.

“It is indeed a timely move. The faster we can move with this project, the quicker we would be able to get capable manpower that the market demands,” said Farhana A Rahman, senior vice president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS).

For that to happen, she said, the teachers would have to be given proper training.

“The government in a prompt decision introduced ICT [curriculum] at the school level a few years ago. But unfortunately, students, in some cases, could not learn anything due to a lack of trained teachers,” she said.

“We even heard that some teachers discouraged students to use ICT. This is a major problem and we need to work on it,” Farhana added.

“We need support from the relevant industries to make our initiatives viable,” Mohibul said.

Meanwhile, three Bangladeshi students -- Rafihath Saleh Chowdhury, of Jalalabad Cantonment English School and College in Sylhet, and -- Quazi Mostahid Labib and Tafsir Tahrim, of Chittagong Grammar School (Dhaka) -- won six medals, including a gold and a bronze, in the Robo Scholar Challenge Category of the International Robot D Challenge in South Korea.