It’s the show time for biological science. We are going through an age, when biological science has the greatest investments for money, merit and media coverage. Our country has also made a powerful impact in this field with the success of JUTE GENOME PROJECT. It is also a matter of pride that many of our Scientists have gone beyond the national boundary, such as Dr. Abed Chaudhury, Dr. Maksudul Alam and many graduates are working in various renowned research organizations both in our country and abroad. But,  if we want the ultimate outcome from this field. We need to start from much deeper, we need to make our young minds concern about this.

I would like to say about most successful educational movement of our country. ‘ The Math Olympiad ‘. With the succession of math Olympiad, many other Olympiads have emerged like Physics Olympiad, Science Olympiad, Biochemistry Olympiad, Informatics Olympiad etc. But, Bangladesh is participating in Math, Informatics, and Physics Olympiad in international level. Most of our neighbor countries India, Pakistan, Sri-lanka compete in International Biology Olympiad regularly.

Most students of school and college think that, studying biology is not that interesting. It’s more likely memorizing history or literature. Here the problem is not with them, the text books and teaching strategy totally misleads them to a negative paradigm towards biology. It’s not possible over night to develop textbooks or produce skilled teachers. But, many interesting books are now available in the market. Why they would read those?  From the thirst of knowledge? That’s true. It’s also true that, a positive motivation could boost up ones capability. An Olympiad could be a motivation.

Last year Dept. Of GEB, SUST arranged a Biology Olympiad in some local schools and colleges in a short radius. They really did a good job by arranging the First Biology Olympiad of Bangladesh. They went to many institutions, gave them a date, and took the exam on the given date. They evaluated the exam papers and elected winners of the institutions. Then invited them in their campus, there the students participated in another exam and this winners were awarded.

Now this year GEB Dept. of SUST wants to create a similar type of program in Sylhet belt.

Can we not arrange the Bio Olympiad in whole country?
Yes, my question is if we (as I am also a family member of GEB, SUST) can arrange a program in our belt then why not other? Off course we can do a great Bio-Olympiad combinedly. And I thing YBB (Young Bio-technologist of Bangladesh) is a great platform to arrange such a good program.

Definitely it is a great workload and can’t be executed without the help of a lot of people. We need academic team, sponsors, counselors and mostly volunteers.

Here is a simple plan:

1. We can collect volunteer around the country, she/he needs to be a undergraduate student of any biological science related subject in any public/private university or National University. (priority will be given to GEB dept. or related departments.)
2. University teachers, renowned scientists and educationist will work in the academic team, basically their job is to set question papers, face the question answer session, motivate the participants  and help us giving instructions for the betterment of this activity.
3. A logistic team will maintain connection with the sponsors and manage costing.
4. A group of volunteers may need to travel around the country to manage communication and other issues in the venues.
5. Rest of the works like spreading the messages in different institutions, decorate the venues, invigilate in exams, evaluate exam papers will be done with the active help of volunteers.

Now, how can we manage the whole thing?

1. The whole country will be divided in 7 divisions on account of transport facility and other matters.
2. A biological science related department students and teachers of a public/private or national university will form a divisional committee. They can take as many as volunteer they need to communicate with all schools and colleges of the division and every division need to form a district committee. This district committee will be leaded by the divisional volunteer team.
3. A school or college in a vantage point for a whole district will be selected for a local venue. Registration forms will be delivered to all schools and colleges and also available online.
4. Student studying in class 8 to 10 can register in secondary category and 11,12 for higher secondary category.
5. Best 10 participants from each category of every district will be given a chance to compete in the divisional level. In the divisional level best 5 students of each category will be given a chance to compete in the central/national bio-Olympiad.
6. No transport cost or food will be provide in the district level, but in divisional level every participant will get a slight breakfast but no transport cost. Winners of divisional Olympiad will get both transport cost and food to participate in the central competition. 
7. And the volunteers have to co-operate with us for free.

 

We have the target to participate in International Biology Olympiad within 2 or three years. It needs a lot more money and structure to train our participants. That’s why we need to start it as early as possible make our students interested in it, and raise a practice of studying biology in more innovative way. 

We can manage sponsorship and other necessary fund too, can’t we ? I need help from every person to do such a good thing in our country. We all want a good doctor or a good biotechnologist or a good researcher or a good agriculturist but did we give such kind of importance towards  biology ?

I thought a roughly idea. can we make it fair and executable ? Please Raise your voice about this issue, we need your help…