Feature

All pervasive globalisation in recent times has paved the way for the realisation of the much-talked-about knowledge-based societies in true sense. Dramatic change in communication, especially, the compression of time and geographical distance due to the ICT revolution has been playing a pivotal role in this context since the closing decade of the last century.

To achieve real development in different aspects, Bangladesh must participate in the race for the creation of a knowledge-based society. As exchange of knowledge among different nation-states is not that difficult now, knowledge has been transformed into global property to some extent. So, we can argue that globalisation has opened the door for every nation to share knowledge. But to take the real and optimum advantage from this, we need to formulate some strategic decisions considering our socio-economic needs and cultural aspects.

Every bit of knowledge has two aspects, namely theoretical and empirical. For the overall development of a society, applied or empirical knowledge is very crucial. For instance, theoretically, we may know different strategies of marketing but unless we translate these into our marketing efforts then these knowledge will have no contribution to our business growth. No doubt, the basis of development of applied knowledge lies in the theoretical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge of natural science has direct correlation with the present-time technological advancement. But the advancement of natural science, in fact, has become possible due to the growing demand of the technological fronts. In essence, it can be ascertained that if we want the civilisation to keep its pace, applied or empirical knowledge should be considered first.
However, to make Bangladesh a knowledge-based country we must consider both theoretical and empirical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge, like Newton's laws of motion or Einstein's theory of relativity, is universal. But the applied knowledge in many cases is context dependent and has both time and cultural dimensions. Since the industrial revolution in the 19th century, the western world the United States in particular has been leading the domains of both theoretical and scientific knowledge. So, a less advanced country like ours must receive knowledge from the developed world for the overall advancement of society.

When we think about technology transfer we should not consider it straightforward without assessing its feasibility and effectiveness in the receiving countries. For example, transfer of power plant technology of the US or of any European countries who stress on huge power-plants will not be beneficial to our country because for the installation of such huge plants we must rely either on foreign aids or on foreign investors. But welcoming both foreign aids and foreign investors by any state has been considered as detrimental strategies in the long run. So, in our context, we should think differently and we may focus on smaller localised power plants which can be installed by local mid-scale entrepreneurs. Moreover, in case of the installation of power plants in our country, use of solar energy and biogas may be considered for economic viability. This sort of transfer of knowledge assimilating in our socio-economic needs may be termed as localisation of knowledge.

Another example of localisation of knowledge may be in the ICT field. While developing software system for the larger user groups of our country, designing of the user interface in Bangla should be considered because a tiny fraction of the people in our country knows the functional English. Besides, for economic reason we should prefer open source software to proprietary software in this case. So, in essence, any applied knowledge that we receive from other country must be assimilated and adapted in our own context. Beside localisation of knowledge, we must give emphasise on promoting our own indigenous knowledge or technology.

Ironically, the indigenous knowledge, skills and technology are the most neglected area in our education system. For example, in our business study course at the tertiary level, we teach different aspects of business taking the foreign corporate business concerns like Ford, Motorala as test cases. But we hardly take any initiative to explore the business strategies of the traders of Old Dhaka or the sawdagars of Chittagong who traditionally have proved themselves as successful business communities in Bangladesh. Rather than teaching foreign corporate houses, studying these local business strategies and ethics will be more relevant to our socio-cultural aspects. Moreover, by theorising these indigenous business skills, the country may be benefited much on the economic front.

Not only in business field, indigenous knowledge may also be traced in many aspects of the country. On the textile front, our traditional weaving industry may be one of such classic example. Incorporating present state-of-the-art technology, it is possible to enhance the productivity of our weaving industry. However, for nurturing indigenous skills and technologies we must be innovative so that we can blend these with the advanced technological knowledge of the present era.

Localisation of knowledge and nurturing indigenous knowledge are only possible if these concepts reflect in our education policy. Unfortunately, our education policy is still following the British colonial legacy. The underlying philosophy of the colonial education policy was not to uphold the economic or cultural aspects of society. So, for the overall development of our country we must formulate our own education policy evaluating our own socio-economic and cultural scenarios. Just mimicking the curriculum and education system of developed countries like the USA or the UK without considering our own context will certainly jeopardise our venture towards a knowledge-based society.

(Md Anwarul Kabir teaches at the computer science department of AIUB and is a freelance write. He can be reached at kabir@aiub.edu)