Every morning, Mr Ahmed Shariar Sarwar makes it his daily ritual to call number 3000 on his mobile phone to get lessons in English - his passport to a better life in impoverished Bangladesh.

The mobile tutorial lasts only three minutes, but the 21-year-old, who is studying the textile trade, says it is already helping him learn the language, which is key to getting a lucrative job in foreign firms based in Dhaka.

Mr Ahmed is among hundreds of thousands of young men who have turned to the novel English teaching service since it was launched last month by a charity arm of the BBC. The aim is to teach the language to six million people by 2011.

'It's simple and good. It costs three taka (six Singapore cents) per lesson - the cheapest way to learn English in Bangladesh,' he said.

Called Janala ('window' in Bengali), the programme lets students take audio and SMS lessons in conversation, pronunciation and basic English, and involves them dialling in five days a week for 18 months. It is already being hailed as a hit.

'We had expected no more than 25,000 calls on the first day, but we were swamped with 84,000 and it's growing,' said Ms Sara Chamberlain, head of the programme at BBC World Service Trust, which uses the media to reduce poverty, promote human rights and improve lives.

'It shows how hungry the young people here are to learn English.'

Bangladesh's export-oriented textile sector and smaller service industries, such as banking, require English-speaking employees whose basic pay can reach up to US$500 (S$700) a month - in a country where the minimum wage is only US$25.

Top education expert Iqbal Aziz Muttaki of Dhaka University said the programme offers hope to the country's millions of poor students.

About 99 per cent of Bangladeshis speak Bengali as their mother tongue.

'Bangladeshis are proud of their language. All governments have promoted Bengali in every sphere of learning - in the process, they almost wiped out English from our education system,' said Professor Muttaki.

BBC officials said the programme's success was because all of the country's mobile operators had given up to 75 per cent discounts on calls to the Janala number.

Although nearly 40 per cent of Bangladesh's 144 million people live below the poverty line, mobile phones have penetrated deep into the rural areas.