EMK center organises Make This Winter Count event for students

EMK Center organised "Make This Winter Count" from December 2020 to January 2021, for the students from grade 7 to grade 12, to help them learn new skills and explore possibilities within the field of STEM and useful soft skills during the winter break.

Despite all challenges, Covid-19 has created an opportunity through virtual learning, and Make this Winter Camp 2020 was participated by more than 2000 students with 45% female participation from 25 districts in 8 trainings, 12 workshops, and 6 webinars virtually. 

The camp ended with a closing ceremony on 18th January where the Professor Dr. Syed Golam Faruk, Director General of Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, was the chief guest. DG expresses his interest to continue in long-term planning rather piecemeal projects. "With EMK, we can find a way out to introduce it with mass students in an inclusive way. If we can add the components of this camp to our regular assessment process, students will be motivated to learn more." 

The program started with experience sharing from the participants. In a hand on and experimental learning process, they have learned skills like graphic design, website design, presentation making, coding and many more from national and international experts. Shakina Akter, assistant teacher of Dhanmondi Government Girls High School said "It helped the students not only to learn tech skills but also the soft skills." 

Acting Public Affairs Officer of the US Embassy in Dhaka, Joshua Kamp highlighted the function of education by quoting Martin Luther King Jr." The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically." 

He encouraged the female students to keep focus on STEM education too. Manik Mahmud, Head of Social Innovation Cluster at a2i said "a2i is looking to work for the future and the future is now. That is why we would like to engage more students in the future through this process." 

Principles of Birshreshtha Munshi Abdur Rouf Public College and Birshreshtha Noor Mohammad Public College emphasised to run follow up programs and arrange similar camps in their own institutes.

Asif Uddin Ahmed, acting director of EMK Center concluded by saying, "The Covid-19 crisis has significantly reshaped the world for students. From their academic study to their social skills and mental health, the fallout may follow them for the rest of their lives. Whatever we do at the EMK Center, our vision is to prepare the future workforce for the 4IR transformation from this stage. Through this, we would like to help other educational institute to help them arranging the camp in their institute." 

He also shared his vision for the upcoming "She Can STEM" program dedicated to women students for encouraging them to pursue a career in STEM.

With a concerted effort from parents, teachers, social workers, and policymakers, all the parties present in the closing ceremony said that children of all classes can emerge from the crisis ready to cope and thrive in the post-Covid-19 world.