The 'knowledge based society' is a much hyped theory in the west which
yet to be addressed in our country in proper manner. Some of our
intellectually advanced people are a little bit of conscious on the
theory, but in practical field of the theory they are mostly inactive.
In fact, it seems they have no government and private sector supports to
take the latest theory practically at the grass root level.
We should address the precondition and environmental factors and
knowledge dissemination issues properly. Still it is in the state of
concept, but why are we not investing much money and brain in building
the knowledge based society. Some of so-called pundits of our country
are not interested in generating and managing knowledge on long time
basis. They like to see quick outcomes of projects to ensure own profits
and benefits.
They hide intentionally the main theory of practical works that comes
from the west. Some of western thinkers first apply their theories in
developing countries like ours. There is some benefit for a few people
here to conduct guinea pig test over our society and citizens. We need
knowledge-based economy in the context of Bangladesh on the basis of our
aboriginal knowledge and the economy will solve our problems for
furthering advances.
Science and technology are the course of encompassing economic growth.
Stocks of knowledge are now capable of being stored in computer hard
disc or in huge placed server. This knowledge is being disseminated
across the world through the Net. Information technology is the force
placing urgency in the society for establishing knowledge-based society.
A society can see its enormous growth with the proper dissemination of
knowledge; it does not a matter what wealth and natural resources the
society is keeping in its possession. In the nearest future people and
society will be measured by knowledge instead wealth and money.
The new economics is one of the buzzwords in the world after the advent
of info-tech. We need many researches on how we can get a
knowledge-based society. The new economic phenomena leaves vital
questions as to how to generate the knowledge for the public welfare and
what will be the easiest way for accessing the essential knowledge.
E-governance is in the business papers of some people who appointed
lobbyists for getting e-governance businesses from our government. They
are just happy in making websites, to get tender to provide computers
and network solutions. Intention of building a knowledge-based society
is absence from their minds. Only they are eager for business and
e-governance projects. Over 70 per cent IT projects of our government is
failed either for inefficiency or corruption.
We are frustrated to see no constructive plan for knowledge based
society is coming from our intellectuals. None of our social thinkers
and hi-tech analysts has yet come up with a roadmap for establishing a
knowledge-based society. The well-known idea is- if we do not have
prerequisite infrastructure of ICTs and comprehensive power of
information, the knowledge-based society would not be built here.
E-governance is not just including modern management mechanism; it also
creates transparency among the government's administration rules that is
why donor bodies are insisting to replicate the process of e-governance
from the Western world. International business companies are not
interested for business if our business firms do not maintain e-commerce
websites. So soon we may see a kind conventional e-governance here that
will eventually go against the main idea of e-governance and
knowledge-based society. A kind of blame will be placed on these due to
project failure and corruption. Our government officials will claim we
have modern managing systems like e-governance, but our citizens will
see no benefits from the adopting e-governance.
Now there are many dissimilarities among the government websites,
interoperability is neglected; in fact, this jargon is completely new to
our government officials. Government websites are poorly developed and
maintained.
Prerequisite of knowledge-based society is gathering information and
generating knowledge on the basis of the information. We still do not
have sufficient knowledge for the anticipated society. The knowledge in
the Bangla language is not sufficient for building knowledge based
society. There is almost nothing about Bangla e-governance for the
native speakers, except a few websites and some computing software,
which have been criticising because of not being up to the standard. We
cannot convert our own knowledge so quickly into English and commoners
do not have required English knowledge to take help from the western
knowledge based economy. Even better ICT infrastructure cannot do
anything for building a knowledge-based society when we do not have
sufficient and relevant knowledge. Information is worthless without
dissemination system and such information cannot generate knowledge for
the commoners. Dissemination of knowledge in proper way and to right
people is essential for building a true knowledge based society.
Shahidul K K Shuvra
The Independent
27 September
The writer is Editor of IT and science pages
8911919 (res)
Cell- 01715245459
http://www.theindep endent-bd. com
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