Maintaining International Level in Bangladesh Mapping: Advocate/RER Attention Requested

[Arman Khossain]

Dear all,

Assalamu Alaikum.

I would like to kindly draw attention of our Country Advocates, RERs and expert mappers for their opinions regarding a dilemma I have been having regarding the categories we apprehend to educational institutes located within Bangladesh territory. I have logical reasons to raise the issue I believe and after raising it and discussing with my guide, I received a positive response hence I decided to proceed with the topic and am humbly requesting to share your thoughts regarding the matter.

My proposition in brief:

• "College" category to be marked for educational institutes offering undergraduate and postgraduate education.
  
• "High School" category to be marked for education institutes offering education through grades 11-12 (HSC/A-level equivalent)
  
• "School" category to be marked for education institutes offering education that leads to SSC/O-level equivalent.
  
• "University" category to be marked for education institutes that have a group of colleges affiliated  to it and may/may not be at different places.

Why? - Brief explanation:

The following text is quoted from my mail where I explained it to my guide.

1. In Bangladesh, "School" is a category and a suffix generally added to schools/educational institutes educating students from grade 1 to grade 10 (O level equivalent) (in some cases, kindergarten/pre-school to grade 10). Example: "Bogra Zilla School".

2. "College" here is a category and a suffix added to educational institute offering education from grade 11 through 12 (A level equivalent, apparently "high school" as you would know it), hence leading to HSC (Higher Secondary Certificate/A-level equivalent) exams. An education institute may have both suffixes assigned if it offers education on school level as well as grade 11-12 (O and A-level). Eg - "Millennium Scholastic School & College" It is actually a 'school' and a 'high school', no undergrad education here, however an international user may think  otherwise.

3. If the suffix "college" is added after "medical", that is "Medical College" it refers to a medical school/university that provides a 4-5 years medical education and leading to get MBBS degrees. Example: "Rangpur Medical College" (also a hospital). As you see, as you would know it, it is it actually a 'medical school' or a 'medical college', but is marked under the same category "College", the same category being used with local "High School" features (point 2).

4. The category and suffix "High School" is added to names when the educational institute offers education up to only grade 6-7 (there is no graduation exam after grade 7, only after grades 5, 10 and 12). Example: Alor Mela KG & High School". It offers education up to grade 7, but if thought internationally, the assigned category 'high school' would mean it offers education up to grade 12, which it actually does not.

The reason I am informing you all this, is as far as I know in the US or from an international perspective, 'School' offers education up to grade 10 (or O level), 'High School' offers education from grade 11 through 12 (or A level), 'colleges' offer undergrad and 'universities' offer graduate/post-graduate degrees. As you see, in Bangladesh these same terms are used in a different meaning on a different level. Suffixes (school, college, school & college, etc.) are assigned by the government. However, it doesn't mean we have to use government assigned categories/suffixes in Map Maker since Google has its own definitions for categories.

If I am correct, then it would mean on an international level whole Bangladesh map is slightly incorrect in terms of marking educational institutes, since we mark "high schools" to be "colleges" and "primary/elementary schools" to be "high schools" etc. as aforementioned; hence perhaps according to Google categories our mapping may be wrong. I think our maps need to exist on an international level, I am saying this from myself, from my thinking and on behalf of no one else; and if so, we will need to change regulations and policies for mapping in Bangladesh according to your definitions of the aforementioned categories.

What do I expect from this?

Fellow mappers, what I expect is a thorough overview of categories that we use in Bangladesh; I would love to see the categories changes as aforementioned to bring Google Maps of Bangladesh to an international understanding. The details about categories mentioned in my proposition above is how Google defines those categories, and as we all see, we are not following the definitions in Bangladesh.

I do not know whether this issue was raised before, but upon thinking about it, it just seems wrong for me to map Bangladesh this way. Thank you for the time you spent on reading the post.

Regards,

Your mapping partner

Arman Khossain

RER for Bangladesh

Google map maker

[Tafsirul Alam]

Walaikum AsSalam,
Thanks for your suggestion, but I think it'll make contradiction with
a feature's name and can create confusion locally. Because, we're not
used with these definition. I appreciate that International Standard
is required, because we have to keep pace with current system, but I'm
afraid that it may create problem for our local people to understand
these institutional feature's category.

[Avijit Roy Kabyo]

Dear Br. Arman, Thanks for raising a great Contradictory Issue. In my opinion, I think we need to follow our Local Category because if we try to follow international Category, then The name of the institution will not be matched with the Category. Also that will make confusion to Our Local mappers.

In these case my Suggestion is to use Additional Categories (I am not sure how Effective it will be) with these Features which will help to find by Category. 

Another thing, in our country, I don think that it will help much to follow international educational category system.

My Explanation:

• Category SCHOOL: Any School (Primary, High, Kindergarten etc). 
• Additional Category: 
• Primary School (for 0 to Class V)
• High School (for 0 to Class X or VI to X) ** for (0-X) we can use both Primary & High School as Additional Category
• Art School: for ART School
• Category HIGH SCHOOL: for (VI-X or VI to XII)
• Category University: 4 Years Bachelor to ----

We need more Suggestion regarding this Issue... 

Thanks and Regards,

--------------------------------------

Avijit Roy Kabyo

•  RER (Regional Expert Reviewer) for Bangladesh || Google map maker
• CEO || The House of Lords & Nil Music Production
• H # 205, R # 06, B # G, Bashundhara R\A, Dhaka-1229
• Counselor & BDO || United College of Aviation, Science & Management (UCASM)
• Sector-03, Road-04, House-16, Uttara, Dhaka-1230.
• Cell    : +880-1711-16 54 39, +880-1611-22 06 11
  
• Secondary Mail: avijitr...@gmail.com

Social Networks

facebook ||  twitter  ||  Google +  ||  Google map maker  ||  somewhere in ... Blog  || Wikimedia Contributions 

Please consider your environmental responsibility. Before printing this email, ask yourself: "Do I need a hard copy?"

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mapping Bangladesh (ম্যাপিং বাংলাদেশ)" group.
To post to this group, send email to mappingb...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to mappingbanglad...@googlegroups.com.

[Arman Khossain]

Dear all,

Thank you for your comments. However, with all due respect I still hold firm to my opinion regarding the raised issue and am left unconvinced that we should just let it go.

[Aman]

আরমান ভাইয়ের সাথে দ্বিমত পোষণ করছি।

১. Local user experience and local particularities should be the focus rather that following USA or any other countries. International users will naturally be aware that education system here will not be necessarily the same as theirs.

২. শিক্ষা প্রতিষ্ঠানের যে International standard এর কথা বলা হচ্ছে, তার বাস্তব কোন অস্তিত্ব নেই বলে আমি মনে করি। হাই স্কুল আর কলেজ পৃথিবীর সব জায়গায়ই আছে, কিন্তু এগুলোর ব্যাপ্তি একেক জায়গায় একেক রকম। 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_school -এ গিয়ে দেখলাম একেক দেশে একেক রকম ব্যবস্থা। ব্রিটেনে ৭ম থেকে ১১শ শ্রেণী অস্ট্রেলিয়ায় ৭ম থেকে ১২শ, ভারতে ও ফিলিপাইনে ৬ষ্ঠ থেকে ১০ম, দক্ষিন আফ্রিকায় ৮ম থেকে ১২শ, নিউ জিল্যান্ডে ৯ম থেকে ১৩শ শ্রেনী ইত্যাদিকে হাই স্কুল বলে। অনেক দেশে আবার প্রাথমিকের পরে মিডল স্কুল বলে একটা জিনিস আছে ৬ষ্ঠ থেকে ৮ম/৯ম শ্রেণীর জন্য যা আমাদের দেশে নেই।

কলেজের ব্যাপারেও একই কথা প্রযোজ্য। In the United States and Ireland, "college" and "university" are loosely interchangeable, whereas in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and other Commonwealth nations, "college" may refer to a secondary or high school, a college of further education, a training institution that awards trade qualifications, or a constituent part of a university.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College)

৩. মেডিকেল কলেজসহ অন্যান্য Specialised প্রতিষ্ঠানের ক্ষেত্রে অবশ্য আমি আরমান ভাইয়ের সাথে একমত। এগুলোর আলাদা category ব্যাবহার করা উচিত either exclusively or additionally. যেমন ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের আইন বিভাগকে law school হিসেবে মার্ক করা আছে।

৪. যেসব প্রতিষ্ঠানে একাধিক স্তরের শিক্ষা চালু আছে সেক্ষেত্রে সর্বোচ্চটাকে primary category রেখে বাকিগুলো additional হিসেবে যোগ করা উচিত। যেমন "Bogra Zilla School" (১ম-১০ম) এর primary category হবে হাই স্কুল।

[Arman Khossain]

Dear Br. Aman,

Thank you for your comment. You have raised valid points and your points are logical.

However, it is noteworthy to mention that we follow policies and definitions by Google, we are using Google Map Maker and mapping in Google Maps. In that case it would be ethical to follow the definitions Google imposed for High Schools, Colleges and Universities, as mentioned in the proposition in my first post; rather than categories/definitions that are made up for local understanding.

[Abdullah Al Aman]

Ok, advocates and rers should come up with formal guideline regarding
this issue in consultation with google which we will all follow.

[Tanzil]

আমার মনেহয় বাংলাদেশে যেটা School নামে পরিচিত সেটাকে School যেটা কলেজ হিসাবে পরিচিত সেটা College যেটা ভার্সিটি হিসাবে পরিচিত সেটাকে University হিসাবে মার্ক করাটাই সঠিক।

আমরা ক্যাটাগরী স্টান্ডারাইজেশন করি সেগুলোর যার স্পস্ট ক্যাটাগরী নেই (যেমন: উপজেলা)। কিন্তু স্পস্ট ক্যাটাগরী থাকার পর সেটাকে স্টান্ডারাইজেশন করবার প্রয়োজন নেই।

বিশেষত বাংলাদেশের ম্যাপ ব্যবহার করে, দেশের মানুষ। তারা তাদের কনসেপ্ট  অনুসারে তারা College সার্চ দেবে, কিন্তু আমরা সেটাকে স্কুল বানিয়ে দিলে তার খুজে পাবেনা। তাই ইন্টারন্যাশনাল কনসেপ্ট  অনুসারে দেশের স্কুল কলেজগুলোকে পরিবর্তন করার কোন প্রয়োজন আছে বলে মনেকরিনা।

দ্বিতীয়ত, অফিসিয়ালী যেটা স্কুল, যেটা কলেজ নিজ তা পরিবর্তন করা যাবেনা। তাই আলাদা নিয়ম করে অফিসিয়াল ক্যাটাগরী পরিবর্তন করা যৌক্তিক হবেনা।

[Altaf Uz Zaman]

I think, we have a good discussion here regarding the category of educational institutions where from everyone learnt something including myself. I have the following comments/ observations:

1) University: An educational institution can be marked as 'University' if and only if the institution is approved/ recognized as University by the University Grants Commission, Bangladesh. There is a list of public and private Universities in the site. Any other institution having the word 'University' should be marked as College. Some mappers erroneously mark 'University colleges' as University.

2) College: In my opinion, if an institution has the word 'College', as prefix, suffix or in any other manner, it should be marked as 'College' as primary category. Because, this is the official name recognized by the Government of Bangladesh. There are several types of colleges in Bangladesh - a) School and College, b) Intermediate college, c) Degree college etc. Depending on the type of college we can add 'High School' as additional category etc. As far as my knowledge goes, any college offering undergrad or masters degree and is not an university must be affiliated to one particular University. There is bunch of lists of schools and colleges at the site of Ministry of Education. We can use these lists to validate names, locations etc.

Now, regarding Medical college, since these are not universities and have the word 'College' officially in their names, marking them as college should be okay. We can add 'Medical school' as either primary or additional category. In GMM, we fortunately have 'Medical school' but unfortunately no 'Engineering school'. For any engineering college, we have to mark them as college. So, even the categorization in GMM has its own fault.

3) High school: There seem to be some confusion regarding this category. In this case we should mark junior secondary, secondary schools simply as 'School' only to avoid any confusion. 

4) School: any educational institution offering education up to SSC can have the generic category 'School' as primary category.

5) Kindergarten and Primary school: I think there is not much confusion with these 2 categories.

The above observations are based on my experience in GMM and related thoughts. Since I'm not an expert on education system, I might be wrong in some cases. However, our object in mapping is to make it simple to the users who frequently use it. We need to ensure that the educational features are easily searchable, have correct names, be located in the right place and be consistent with the local (official) system at the same time. That's where the local knowledge play its role.

Regards,

Zaman

Advocate/ RER for Bangladesh

Google map maker