Grameenphone recently signed agreements with the British Council, in Bangladesh, and Durbin Labs Limited respectively to jointly develop ‘MyStudy’, a mobile learning application for secondary school students of Bangladesh.
The MyStudy application targets SSC students in the 9th and 10th grades, focusing on the national curriculum for Mathematics, English and ICT subjects, said a statement.
The app will provide self-learning and self-assessment modules designed to create engagement and better understanding. The app will enable equal access across the country to quality education and clarity on content. MyStudy contents will be available to students free of cost.
Michael Foley, Grameenphone CEO, Barbara Wickham, Director Bangladesh, British Council, and Reaz Monowar, Director of Durbin Labs signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations.
In today’s digital era, added support from digital educational content is becoming a necessity for students. Although Bangladeshi students have access to the internet, there is a noticeable lack of contextually relevant content in Bangla. To address this need, Grameenphone is partnering with the British Council, which has long experience and proven track record in developing education both locally and internationally, and Durbin Labs, an organisation working for the development of digital education in Bangladesh, in the development of the app.
Speaking on the occasion, Grameenphone CEO Michael Foley said, “Slowly, but surely online education will transform the way we learn and has already started impacting some on our society. There is a great opportunity for Bangladesh to digitalise and democratise knowledge and bridge the access divide to quality education. With a globally acclaimed partner like the British Council and our homegrown innovation partner, Durbin Labs, MyStudy is expected to deliver locally relevant quality content.”
The British Council will take the lead in designing the conceptual framework or user interface, overall design guidelines for curating the mobile content from the local education materials writers, while Durbin Labs will be developing the digital content based on the guidelines provided by British Council. Besides Durbin Labs Limited will also responsible to use their Edtech expertise to develop Mobile Application and Content Management Platform.
Speaking on behalf of British Council, Country Director Barbara Wickham said "British Council has a long history of working with the ministries of education and other various agencies on improving English and Education across Bangladesh. This is a natural next step into the digital domain and we are happy to be working with Grameenphone and Durbin as leaders in the telecommunications and digital fields to achieve this."
Shazly Omar of Durbin Labs said, “Digital Education can be a blessing for developing countries like Bangladesh which will enable access of quality education in more affordable way. We firmly believe that GP MySudy App will take our digital education a few step ahead and it will certainly make a great impact of millions of students for their learning and development.”
MyStudy is expected to be a great equaliser in education, especially for girls, as students will be able to access quality educational support from their homes. Further, students in hard to reach areas will benefit from this service.
Grameenphone as part of its commitment to SDG 10 “Reduce Inequality” has undertaken this initiative. The British Council is also contributing their significant expertise in local and international education voluntarily.
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