The Badshah Faisal Islamic Institute (BFII) in Jessore is the most
recent addition to the Global Connections and Exchange Program network
in Bangladesh. Its internet learning center came fully online this
summer, and the school has fully integrated computer learning into the
curriculum. Each of the more than 900 high school students in the
school, boys and girls, have regular classes in the ILC.
 Whenever its own students are not using the ILC, the BFII has arranged
for one of its four partner schools to use its facilities. The response
from the partner schools has been staggering. Through clever
transportation and scheduling arrangements in Jessore, students from
schools located up to twenty kilometers away from BFII have been able
to share the facility.
This latest center literally represents a new direction for the GCEP
project in Bangldesh: south-west. BFII is the first ILC school in the
Khulna division. The city of Khulna is another fifty kilometers to the
south, with the Bay of Bengal lays even more distantly to the south.
Bangladesh’s western border with India is only about forty kilometers
to the West, and Jessore is on the main route to Kolkata (formerly
Calcutta) in India’s West Bengal.
Historically, Jessore was an agricultural center, as well as a trade
center by virtue of its position near crossroads. Having ILCs in
different corners of Bangladesh gives the GCEP project a chance to
facilitate cultural exchanges within Bangladesh, in addition to its
primary goal of establishing crosscultural linkages between students of
different countries. The cultural differences between cities are
relatively large in Bangladesh, and there is plenty of room for
discussion. This has been particularly evident for after school clubs
which meet at the same time in different cities and sometimes chat via
the internet.
Over the last month, Relief International – Schools Online staff
members have trained every teacher at the BFII and lead teachers from
partner institutions — more than 60 teachers in all — in computer
basics. The school will continue its education effort with weekly staff
meetings in the ILC, where teachers will discuss their uses of the
center, and exchange lesson plans,ideas, and technology hints. |
