Accepting technology – Challenges in rural areas

Accepting Technology – a critical issue of modern era but possesses huge challenges in rural areas of our country. Bangladesh, known to the world as a low income country, has taken a challenge to become a middle income one by 2021. Our country has recently experienced several improvements in different development indicators; notably in societal, technological, educational, women empowerment, healthcare, and investment areas. Our Prime Minister has also declared some development targets to shift towards becoming a middle income country. Various actions like coverage of 30 lakh people through solar electricity in next three years and faster improvements in implementation of ‘Digital Bangladesh’ concept are impressively encouraging the nation to become hunger free by 2021.

If Bangladesh happens to have accomplished all those development initiatives, the people of this country will be vastly benefited. But this is also duly supposed that all these initiatives will lead towards a higher technological usage all around the country as we have already seen in last few years. Telecommunications and information technology sector has been playing a pivotal role in developing and realizing the ‘Digital Bangladesh’ concept and deriving benefits out of it.

The general people of urban areas have already moved to a more technology based lifestyle in recent times areas as cell phones, laptops, internet are not at all a luxury item. Rather these have become essential tools for them. We find rickshaw-pullers, day-labourers, house-maids even beggars with cell phones these days. Hardly any teenagers or kids will be found with no exposure to internet, computers or cell phones in urban areas. In rural areas too, we observe a fast growing technology-based lifestyle in recent days though the challenge of accepting technology is still high for the rural masses.

Majority of Bangladesh’s population lives in rural areas. Without the participation of these rural people, no development initiative can be successful. The success can be derived from the changes that an initiative can bring towards bettering lives of these people. This is still very challenging to drive technological improvements in rural areas as the rural people are far behind in education and income in comparison with the urban folks. Hence, using a cell phone or laptop can still become an element of surprise for many or most of our village-people.

But how and why they are being challenged with higher use of technology should be a critical thing to analyze.

A day-labourer, Shapan Miah, lives at a village of Brahmanbaria district and earns around six thousand taka per month if the work is on season and full-scale. He has been using a mobile phone for last 5 years and on an average spends three to four hundred taka per month on mobile phone recharge. He is well aware of internet usage facility of his handset, gifted by his brother-in-law working in Saudi Arabia, but he cannot use internet or some other features like Bluetooth exchange, picture messaging etc. For him, there are two reasons – lack of institutional education and low requirements of technological use in his life. Shapan is satisfied as he can talk over his handset and also can take pictures. But recently, he is taking some criticism from young boys around as they can use different functions of the handset but he cannot. This cell phone user told that he cannot read the writings of the cell phone but he can read the numbers to make calls and he is satisfied enough. But I guess, his next generation will not be satisfied only with that.

The rural youths are extremely curious in using technological gadgets. They have become curious about mobile phone camera, internet, social networking sites, audio-videos, games etc. With few efforts of government and some companies in telecom and IT sector, the youths have gained internet in computer usage also.

A young village boy, Nipu seemed to be very tech savvy as I found him using multiple applications on his smart phone. Now we know about his usage of the device. Other than calling and texting, he uses his phone for social networking (Facebook), listening music, watching videos, playing games, taking pictures and using some entertaining apps. This boy is not much educated, studied up to class eight at village schools. He said it was very difficult at first to use all these mobile functions as he had difficulties in reading English. But continuous effort has made it easier later. Moreover, many sites even Facebook are available in Bengali now, which made it further easier for him. Still he sometimes suffers and regrets not being more educated. In addition to this mobile phone, he can use laptop or other computers a bit for entertainment purposes only as he has almost no exposure to the effective usage of computers.

The scenario for the elderly people is much different from the young ones. The elders in villages use mobile phones only for calling and receiving calls. A farmer told that he heard of something useful about mobile phones which can help him to grow his agricultural business but never could have used it. According to him, it is difficult for people like him to use technical devices as they are not used to as well as they do not have required knowledge or education. They are happy as electricity has come to their villages and they can watch television for news or can enjoy a nice drama through cable connection.

The opportunity of financial transaction over mobile phones has become very popular now-a-days. In rural areas, many people, especially women are using this facility for running their small enterprises. Now they are using facilities like; bKash to collect money from their husband who lives in far away countries for earning livelihood. Mobile phones have made their lives easier in every aspect. Now these women are much more communicative and participative in the society and many are engaged in different entrepreneurship and gained respect. These women want their next generation to be properly educated and with that both standard of living and technological usage will enhance to a much better extent.

Under the development programme of United Nations and some NGOs along with Bangladesh government, few schools received some computers and laptops. The kids at those schools have received an orientation of these devices in recent years. Few teachers at primary level in rural areas claimed the students got very attached and comfortable with the computers. These little children also picked up the essence of using these devices very quickly. According to these teachers, their kids were as smart as the urban kids in learning to use the computers as they took great interest in it. However, few teachers complained about some other technological aspects; like watching television for longer times, being engaged with mobile phones etc. But, overall technology is proving to be a blessing for the rural youngsters.

There was an opportunity to meet two teenagers, who were visiting Dhaka, having come from Vienna, Austria, few months ago. I found they were heavily dependent on their mobile phones. But the astonishing fact is that these two teenagers were using the same applications as the young village boy of Bangladesh does; chatting, social networking, browsing, taking pictures, enjoying audio visuals and gaming. There was almost no difference other than the cost of their device and the gap in their education. While a village youth struggles with the instructions and language of cell phone, the Austrian teens did not have any difficulty. The passion was similar but lack of education and knowledge comes as the only barrier for the rural youth while trying to get technologically upgraded.

In 2010-11, Bangladesh government introduced Information Services Centre at Union level and people were aimed to be provided with information services through computers and internet from there. If successful, the project was supposed to bring millions of people closer to the information they seek in respect to education, agriculture, market etc. But, due to the lack of education and knowledge, the project does not seem to be very effective. The devices at many centers are damaged as required expertise to handle those were not available. Nevertheless, the initiative was praiseworthy and will obviously become a successful one with continuous follow up and error management.

Our neighboring country, India has already achieved huge success by implementing technology to increase the participation in education of rural areas. Kenya, an African country, has also achieved notable success. We also have huge potential in this aspect. But we hardly find anyone with computers or laptops at their homes in rural areas whereas these have become an essential item in urban areas over last 10 years. Mobile phones, though, have become a part and parcel of rural lives too. The price of IT products has also been a challenge for low income people of the rural areas. Along with that, after a certain level the participants in higher education drop out alarmingly in rural areas. But if the people at villages or suburbs keep pursuing higher education, then use of computers will also become very familiar to them in near future. Obviously, this will be a great challenge as it was to bring electricity, cable television or mobile phones in rural areas but that happened.

In today’s world, any development initiative is supported by technological uplift and upgraded implementation. Bangladesh also is going through several improvements in use of technology in our daily lives, which will lead us to run at same pace along with other developing countries. This is highly encouraging to find readiness to accept the changes in technology among the new generation of Bangladesh. As they grow in education, this readiness will be much more effective in adaptation and implementation. The government, NGOs, IT and Telecom companies should provide more emphasis on educating the youths using technological drives. They should come forward with high tech devices from the early life of their education. This will definitely drive the quality of their education and overcoming all challenges and we definitely hope, the next generation of Bangladesh will stand on the scale as those of developed countries.

The article was first published at The Daily Observer.