শনিবার, ২৩শে মার্চ, ২০২৪ খ্রিস্টাব্দ ৯ই চৈত্র, ১৪৩০ বঙ্গাব্দ

Women show their talents in the country’s IT sector

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The ration of woman participation in ICT industries is now 33.7%, according to the World Bank

Rafiza Akhtar came out successful in the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examinations in 2018, with “Golden A Plus”.

Her dream was to study civil engineering at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Accordingly, she was taking preparation to get admitted to her dream university.

In the meantime, she discussed his dream with one favourite teacher in her school.

The teacher praised her university choice but motivated for another subject, computer science, which had high demand in the digital era.

In the field, the females were lagging behind than the males, the teacher said.

Rafiza liked her teacher’s advice, and her interest increased with the repetition of the words in mind –women are lagged behind.

She took a decision and finally could secure her position in the Computer Science Department in the university.

The story of Champa Biswash who lives in Dhaka’s Mirpur area is some different. The 39-year-old Champa joined a job in a non-government organisation after completing her BBA and MBA from a private university. She got married two years later and did not leave the job.

Champa faced a little problem managing her family after she had been blessed two children with a short gap and quit the job.

When her children grew up and started high school, Champa was getting huge leisure time. she decided to enrol a short-term course on computer to do outsourcing work in her free time.

With the four-month course, the mid-age woman could successfully start outsourcing work from her home. A few months later, she formed a team and increases over time. Now 11 females are working in under Champa, who earns 50,000 to Tk 55,000 on an average every month.

The Bangladesh Open Source Network (BOSN) in 2005-2006 can portray the situation of female engagement in the ICT sector, which said that in the country’s 90 IT educational institutions, the ratio of women was 25 per cent.

It is now 33.7%, according to the world Bank.

The situation improves day by day as the government took various initiatives to enhance women participation in the ICT sector.

The government with the financial support of the World Bank continues various inspirational campaigns under the Leveraging ICT for Growth, Employment and Governance (LICT) Project to create more than 10,000 skilled women manpower in the IT sector.

Under the LICT project run by Bangladesh Computer Council under the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division, nearly 34,000 males and females were provided with ICT training. Later, a scope for employment will be created for 10,000 female trainees.

Vice-President of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) Farhana A Rahman said the ICT sector was more suitable for women in comparison to other fields.

”Those women who dream of becoming entrepreneurs can come to this sector as there are many areas in the field,” she said.

According to the World Bank, nearly 1.2 million jobs are generated in Bangladesh annually, and the males occupy most of the employment.

“Bangladesh Development Update” recently advised to enhance the participation of women in employment further than the current amount to make Bangladesh a middle-income country by 2021.

It said Bangladesh’s GDP growth would increase by 1.6 per cent if the women participation in the ICT sector could be raised to 82 per cent from existing 33.7 per cent.

The report is originally produced by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef).