Bangladesh PM kick-starts online textooks

Dhaka, April 25: Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today (April 25) formally launched e-book, a digitised compilation of primary and secondary textbooks, opening a new horizon of easy access to textbooks through the Internet.

The National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) and UNDP- funded Access to Information (A2I) Programme of the Prime Minister's Office jointly organised the inaugural ceremony.

From now on textbooks will be available on www.ebook.gov.bd for free. The e-book will eliminate all fear of hampered learning due to delay in getting textbooks.

The e-book is readable on digital devices like computer, e-book readers, mobile phones, PDAs, CDs and iPads.

It is expected to be very helpful especially for expatriate Bangladeshi students to take preparation for primary terminal, Junior Secondary Certificate and Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations from abroad.

The students could use the e-book easily as presently 40 percent of the country's schools have computer facilities and the government has taken initiative to establish multimedia classroom at 20,500 secondary schools.

Students with weak eyesight can read the e-book easily by make the font bigger on the computer screen.

In future the ''text to speech'' version of textbook will be introduced for visually challenged students.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid, Primary and Mass Education Minister Dr Afsarul Amin, National Project Director of Access to Information Nazrul Islam Khan also spoke at the function held at the Prime Minister's Office.

PTI (BSS)