The British Council organised the Connecting Classrooms III Launch on Sunday 13 September 2015, at British Council Fuller Road office. Honourable Minister Advocate Mostafizur Rahman, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education was the Chief Guest of the event.
The British Council had completed two phases of the Connecting Classrooms programme in Bangladesh over the last six years, and this launch marked the initiation of the third phase of this programme in Bangladesh.
‘Connecting Classrooms’ is the British Council’s flagship global education program, co-funded by Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, designed to help young people develop knowledge, skills, and values to live and work in a globalised economy and make a positive contribution locally and globally. It aims to build the capacity of 3000 teachers and 600 school leaders in Bangladesh to support them to integrate a range of core skills into the curriculum.
The programme aims to improve teaching in areas including professional development for teachers and school leaders, sustainable partnerships between schools in the UK and Bangladesh, professional dialogue opportunities for policy makers that will support national and regional level debate, reflection and action, and awards to schools for international work focusing on the core skills, as well as online access to high quality resources to support teachers in delivering improved learning outcomes.
The programme in this phase will focus on core skills and will develop the capacity of teachers in Bangladesh to deliver a curriculum that integrates:
- collaboration and communication
- critical thinking and problem solving
- citizenship
- creativity and imagination
- digital literacy
- student leadership
The event also hosted an award-giving ceremony for 27 schools who achieved the British Council’s International School Award. This award recognizes schools that embed global learning into the curriculum to enrich learning through international work.
There was also an art exhibition of the Rivers of the World project where 90 students from Chittagong shared their experience of learning outside the classrooms to enhance their understanding of the resourcefulness of the Karnaphuli River. The Rivers of the World project aims to enable these students to explore, celebrate and share their local environment, while learning about other cultures and engaging with global issues.
The programme ended with a musical performance by Viqarunnisa Noon School & College and Dhanmondi Boys High School, with songs learned from the creative leadership of the British Council’s World Voice project.
Honourable Minister, Advocate Mostafizur Rahman said “I appreciate British Council for the Connecting Classrooms programme, which is helping to promote the 21st-century skills to further develop our students’ creativity, critical thinking, digital literacy and citizenship among young students – our future leaders of tomorrow. I believe this programme will complement the government’s initiative to help enrich education quality in Bangladesh”.
Director General, NAEM Professor Md. Hamidul Haque attended to the event as Special Guest while British High Commissioner, His Excellency, Robert W Gibson graced the event as Guest of Honour. A total of 150 guests attended the Launch.