Improving IT education

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It was reported earlier in the media that a target was set up to earn annually more than 2.00 billion through software export. This projection was, no doubt, inspirational. But anyone knowing well the Information Technology (IT) scene here could not but ask how this ambitious goal would be realised.
The earnings in the IT field are only possible if trained manpower is available. The way to creating such manpower is through training in IT education. But this training is not up to the mark generally except some cases and not yet suitable to meet the demand of the times. Sufficient number of IT professionals of appropriate calibre are not being created here. This probably has a link to the half-baked IT education that these people received in local IT training centres.
Many IT institutions in Dhaka offer too many courses and many are joining the courses out of a hope of getting high paying jobs. But the reality in the IT field --specially in the international market-- is that the IT learners need really specialisation in one area. Some Indian IT training companies have started operations in Bangladesh but they do not help to create international standard programmers. Only a few have the capacities to make international standard IT programmers which is the precondition to be met for making software for exports.
The need for Bangladesh at the moment really is to stress first on producing a products of a different kind : programmers. The first step should be to create IT experts with core understanding of the principles of programming after completing specialised courses such as Enterprise Java Beans, Jini I Planet, etc. These are some of the technologies that are being used everyday by dotcom companies around the world. In these specialised courses students develop their own live projects in realistic lab environment. The successful completion of these projects means that the programmer has matured into an internationally recognised product, one who is capable of making software products of significant value.
But only a handful of IT education centres are possibly providing such courses for their learners in Bangladesh. Most of the other IT institutions are persuading eager learners to join their courses of dubious value. Thus, it is important on the part of the government to watch over the curriculum of IT education centres and guide developments in relation to IT education.
Kabita Karim
Banani,
Dhaka.