Study on Development of ICT-Enabled Vocational Education at the Bangladesh Open University

Abstract

PCF10 Sub-theme: Fostering Lifelong Learning // Around the globe, ICT is making major differences in the teaching-learning approaches and assessment. In line with this, Bangladesh implements ICT in education through its Access to Information (a2i) Programme, and puts emphasis on skilling people by using ICT for supporting SDGs by its ministries and associated agencies. In response to this, Bangladesh Open University in association with the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA/ COL) implements the project entitled ‘Impacting Education and Open Schooling through OER- Making a Difference among the Learners’. This research paper forms part of an action research under this project, and focuses on identifying the policy gaps and tutors’ attitudes towards ICT-enabled vocational education and training (VET) for skilling the disadvantaged learners. Desktop approach on open source materials was deployed for identifying the policy gap, and survey approach was used to collect 180 tutors’ attitude to ICT-enabled VET. Analysis of literature and reports indicate that Bangladesh possesses significant advantage due to the availability of ICT infrastructure for implementing ICT-enabled VET. The results also showed that tutors had a positive attitude towards the use of ICT in vocational education, and it’s use to help tutors be more effective in VET tutorials and in improving student learning. The results have been further interpreted in relation to the existing national and institutional policies and practices. // Paper ID 2796