Nurturing indigenous knowledge
KNOWLEDGE-based society has become a buzzword these days, although people in developed countries started their journey towards such a society at the beginning of the last century. Globalisation has paved the way for the realisation of the much-talked-about knowledge-based societies in the true sense. The compression of time and distance due to the ICT revolution has played a pivotal role in this context since the closing decade of the last century.
To achieve real development, Bangladesh must create a knowledge-based society. As exchange of knowledge among nations is not difficult now, knowledge has become global property to some extent. To take advantage of this, we need to formulate strategies considering our socio-economic needs and cultural aspects.
Every bit of knowledge has two aspects, namely theoretical and empirical. For the overall development of a society, applied or empirical knowledge is very crucial. For instance, theoretically, we may know different strategies of marketing but, unless we use them in our marketing efforts, they cannot make any contribution to our business growth. No doubt, the basis of development of applied knowledge lies in the theoretical knowledge.
Theoretical knowledge of natural science has direct correlation with the present technological advancement. But the advancement of natural science, in fact, has become possible due to the growing demand of the technological fronts. In essence, it can be ascertained that if we want civilisation to keep its pace, applied or empirical knowledge should be considered first.
However, to make Bangladesh knowledge-based, we must consider both theoretical and empirical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge, like Newton's laws of motion or Einstein's theory of relativity, is universal. But applied knowledge in many cases is context dependent and has both time and cultural dimensions. Since the industrial revolution in the 19th century, the western world -- the United States in particular -- has been leading in the domains of both theoretical and scientific knowledge. So, a less advanced country like ours must receive knowledge from the developed world for the overall advancement of society.
When we think about technology transfer we should not consider it straightforward without assessing its feasibility and effectiveness in the receiving countries. For example, transfer of power-plant technology of the US or of any European country will not be beneficial to our country because we must rely either on foreign aid or on foreign investors for the installation of such huge plants. But both foreign aid and foreign investors are considered to be detrimental in the long run.
So, we should focus on smaller, localised power plants, which can be installed by local entrepreneurs. Moreover, use of solar energy and biogas may be considered for economic viability. This sort of transfer of knowledge, according to our socio-economic needs, may be termed as localisation of knowledge.
Another example of localisation of knowledge may be of ICT. While developing software systems, designing of the user interface in Bangla should be considered because only a tiny fraction of the people know English. Besides, for economic reasons, we should prefer open-source software to proprietary software. So, in essence, any applied knowledge that we receive from another country must be assimilated and adapted in our own context.
Beside localisation of knowledge, we must emphasise promotion of our own knowledge or technology. Ironically, indigenous knowledge, skills and technology are neglected in our education system. For example, in the business study course at the tertiary level, we teach different aspects of business taking foreign business concerns like Ford, Motorala, etc. as test cases. But we hardly take any initiative to explore the business strategies of the traders of Old Dhaka or the sawdagars of Chittagong who traditionally have proved themselves as successful business communities in Bangladesh.
Rather than teaching about foreign corporate houses, studying these local business strategies and ethics will be more relevant. Moreover, by theorising these indigenous business skills, the country may be benefited much on the economic front.
Indigenous knowledge may also be found in many other areas. On the textile front, our traditional weaving industry may be one classic example. Incorporating state-of-the-art technology, it will be possible to enhance the productivity of our weaving industry. However, for nurturing indigenous skills and technologies we must be innovative, so that we can blend these with the advanced technological knowledge of the present era.
Localisation of knowledge and nurturing of indigenous knowledge are only possible if these concepts are reflected in our education policy. Unfortunately, our education policy is still following the British colonial legacy. The underlying philosophy of the colonial education policy was not to uphold the economic or cultural aspects of society.
So, for overall development, we must formulate our own education policy after evaluating the socio-economic and cultural scenarios. Just mimicking the curriculum and education system of developed countries without considering our own context will certainly jeopardise our venture towards a knowledge-based society.
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