M. Mahruf C. Shohel

Introducing mobile technology for enhancing teaching and learning in Bangladesh: teacher perspectives

This paper reviews the themes emerging from Bangladeshi teachers’ experiences of taking part in the initial research and the development stage of a professional development programme they were involved with. The Secondary Teaching and Learning Programme is an information and communications technologies‐enhanced supported open distance learning programme of professional development in English‐language teaching. This paper presents evidence arising from semi‐structured interviews carried out with teachers from a pre‐pilot study for the English in Action project. The teachers participating in this study reflect upon six months’ experience of using professional development materials (course material of audio podcasts enhanced with text and images; videos of classroom practice; audio of classroom language) and classroom resources (audio recordings of text‐book reading passages, songs, poems and stories), all accessed via portable digital media players (iPods).

Models of Education for Sustainable Development and Nonformal Primary Education in Bangladesh

The social purposes of education are long term and oriented towards the construction and maintenance of a sustainable future. This article focuses on developing-country contexts with relatively low formal school enrolment rates, where dropout and failure rates are alarming, and where many children leave school semi-literate, soon to relapse into illiteracy. This has negative consequences for their participation as individuals in the creation of a sus-tainable world. Since the 1960s, nonformal basic education has offered alternative educational and training activities, with innovative learning methods aimed at the development of practical skills, including matters of health, sanitation, literacy, to be applied in real-life situations. Drawing on a five-year empirical study of young people at the point of transition be-tween the nonformal and formal sectors of schooling in Bangladesh, this article analyses the nonformal education paradigm against a framework of models linking education and sustainable development. By following an activist citizen model, nonformal education empowers students to critically consider new circumstances and to believe that they can make a change when needed.

Informality of teaching and learning in nonformal schools: socio-cultural processes as mesosystems of student development

The flexible environment of nonformal primary schools in a community context in Bangladesh facilitates the individual development of young people who would otherwise be excluded from the school system. This paper aims to explore the features of institutional and wider context which support this nonformal learning environment, as well as contrasting it with those features which create a very different and far less flexible environment in formal high schools. The paper draws on a five-year longitudinal study of students making the transition from nonformal primary to formal high school using ecological systems theory as a framework from two geographical sites in Bangladesh. Data suggests that childrens learning is facilitated by the interlinked contexts of nonformal school and family/community. In contrast, the separation of formal high school from family and community appears to contribute to early dropout. This paper raises some questions worthy of further research and will contribute to the emerging debate about nonformal education and its impact on future educational development for achieving millennium development goals (MDGs).

Imagining inclusive teachers: contesting policy assumptions in relation to the development of inclusive practice in schools

In this article we reflect on data from two research projects in which inclusive practice in the educational system is at issue, in the light of wider field experience (our own and others’) of school and teacher development. We question what we understand to be relatively common, implicit policy assumptions about how teachers develop, by examining the way in which teachers are portrayed and located in these projects. The examples discussed in this article draw on experience in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) and Bangladesh, critically exploring teachers’ roles, position and agency in practice. Similarities and differences rooted in cultural, political and institutional contexts highlight in a productive way the significance and potential dangers of policy assumptions about teachers within the process of development. From Bangladesh, a success story is presented: the case of a group of primary and junior high schools with formal and non-formal characteristics facilitate the inclusion of young people who were previously outside the education system. In these schools, the institutional context for learning appears to sustain teachers’ commitment and motivation. These data suggest the importance of the institutional context to teachers’ practices, and raise questions about approaches to teacher development which omit consideration of that context by, for example, focusing inadvertently on features of individual teachers. We then consider teachers’ responses to the movement for inclusive education in a primary school in the Lao PDR since 2004. Inclusion here was understood to require a significant shift in teacher identity and a movement away from authoritative pedagogy towards the facilitation of a pedagogy which aimed to encourage the active participation of all students. Through a longitudinal study of teachers in one school, the conditions for such change were identified and again cast doubt on some of the assumptions behind large-scale attempts at teacher development. Reflecting on these experiences and the evidence they provide, we suggest that teacher development programmes are more likely to be effective where teachers are considered not as individuals subject to training but as agents located in an influential institutional context.

School-based teachers’ professional development through technology-enhanced learning in Bangladesh

To promote significant pedagogical change, the most successful teacher education programmes for the global south happen in the school context. This paper is based on a pre-pilot intervention study of an international education development programme in Bangladesh. Technology-enhanced learning, in this case the use of the Apple® iPod® (iPod touch®), was used to support teachers’ teaching and learning in their school contexts. This paper presents evidence to demonstrate how such school-based technology-enhanced support systems impact on classroom practice and help teachers’ professional development. Using the case of a pre-pilot intervention in the Underprivileged Children’s Educational Programs schools, it explores the teachers’ professional development by analysing interviews with the teachers who were participating in the pre-pilot intervention programme, and draws the conclusion from the collected data that school-based teachers’ professional development through technology-enhanced learning is contributing significantly to in-service training in a resource-constrained context.

Using technology for enhancing teaching and learning in Bangladesh: challenges and consequences

The increasing use of media and technologies for enhancing teaching and learning is an important current trend to overcome the challenges of schooling and teacher training in the changing world. Many countries in the Global South are trying to adopt technologies in their school and teacher training systems to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals. Though some recent research shows impacts of using technologies for enhancing teaching and learning in technology-poor contexts, no research actually addresses the challenges and difficulties associated with using the technologies in those specific contexts. This article presents interview data derived from secondary schools teachers in Bangladesh, in a context beset with many difficulties associated with technology use. In a pilot project, Apple iPods were introduced in 2009 to explore the challenges and consequences of using technology in schools. The data reveal the implications for the teachers’ professional development when they used the iPod as a multimedia player to access educational resources made available to support teaching and learning. This article has also thrown some light on current debates about using technologies for enhancing teaching and learning in technology-poor contexts.

Housing Problems for Middle and Low Income People in Bangladesh Challenges of Dhaka Megacity

In Bangladesh, 30 per cent of its total population is living in urban areas and by 2030 the rate of urbanization will be more than 40 per cent. There is a tremendous pressure of influx of people in Dhaka city. Current trend of urban migration is driven by rural poverty, river erosion and natural calamities forcing them to migrate to Dhaka city in search of better livelihoods. These newcomers floating people in the city end up sleeping in public places such as street corners, railway and bus stations as well as other available places including abandoned buildings. The existing infrastructure facilities developed in Dhaka megacity cannot cope with the minimum living requirements of this poor working class floating population. The Dhaka city is exposed to an array of urban problems that could not be discussed in one paper. This article explores the nature and pattern of housing developed under public sector and the policies and strategies that the Government of Bangladesh is pursuing particularly for the middle and poor class who are living permanently in Dhaka city in temporary shelters or on floating basis.

Open and Distance Learning for Teachers’ Professional Development: The English in Action (EIA) Model for the Global South

This chapter suggests that teachers’ professional development is going through a major transformation. For most countries in the Global South there is an acknowledgment that the quality of teacher education and the extent of the provision of training will need to be increased. By utilising new interactive forms of technology, open and distance learning has a great role to play in the process of teachers’ professional development. The school is increasingly seen as a place for learning within new models of teacher training programmes. In this era of increased mobile technology, all forms of teacher education programmes are exploring the possibilities of using technology in their contexts. Therefore the chapter, based on the pre-pilot study of the English in Action (EIA) Model, is suggesting that open and distance learning through the use of emerging technology is going to be a major contibution for teachers’ professional development to meet the crisis of inadequate qualified teacher supply in the Global South.

Food Security and Livelihood in Coastal Area under Increased Salinity and Frequent Tidal Surge

Food availability is a crucial dimension of food security in an agrarian society. It is largely realized through own food production of a specific society. Seasonality plays an important role in food security. This article analyzes the existing threat to food security and livelihood in coastal areas of developing countries, particularly in Bangladesh, with a focus on climate change and seasonality. There is persistent food shortage during the sowing season and the pre-harvest period. Food deficit remains high during mid-August to end of October (68–95 per cent) while it is the lowest in December (21 per cent). During the pre-harvest period, farmers have to invest a lot of money at a time though they cannot afford it. Evidence suggests that food loans are common among the poor or small farmers during the food deficit period or in the event of flood. Over 78 per cent of the respondents had taken loans from microfinance institutions and local individual moneylenders. Problem remains as salinity and overfishing has drastically depleted open-water fisheries. Reviving livelihoods still remain a challenge for the vulnerable households especially in areas where agricultural diversity is very limited. Therefore, alternative livelihoods initiatives such as homestead or community-based cage fishing, cash grant and training on non-farm activities of women and men, generating employment through public work programmes need to be in place to ensure food security and livelihood of vulnerable people living in coastal areas.