Govt giving student loan for IT outsourcing

Jamal Uddin | Published: March 19, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

The government is working closely to ensure the country's strong position in the global outsourcing market by taking multifarious steps to prepare the youth, mainly university students, for outsourcing jobs, said officials.
The major initiatives include ensuring Information Technology (IT) infrastructure in district and upazila levels, arranging training programmes, and managing loan facility for the students.
ICT Division additional secretary Kamal Uddin Ahmed said providing loan facility is the latest initiative of the government.
Under a project taken in this regard, some 500 students will be selected from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and Dhaka University for receiving loan, he also said.
The ICT Division calculated that 70 per cent students of the universities come from rural areas, and only 6 per cent of them have personal laptop. As a result, a large portion of the students miss the opportunity of getting access to information highway.
Under the loan scheme, each student will get Tk 36,000 as education loan for buying laptop.
Â Mr Ahmed expected that the students will get the loan facility by this May, and can contribute to the outsourcing sector.
Earlier, ICT Secretary Md Nazrul Islam Khan said his ministry has taken plan to provide training to district- and upazila-level entrepreneurs to develop them as business process outsourcing (BPO) professionals.
The government will arrange training programmes abroad for 630 mid-level officers of the IT sector to develop them as master trainers, who will work for flourishing the sector.
After creation of 15,000 freelancers at district-level, the ministry has launched second phase of the Learning and Earning Development Project to develop 55,000 freelancers at upazila level, the ICT Secretary mentioned.
The government has taken initiatives to turn the country's 4,516 Union Information Service Centres (UISCs) into mini outsourcing centres to allow the freelancers at grassroots level to work under the trained entrepreneurs.