New education curriculum in a shambles

A post-haste introduction of any system, much as its merit may be, not only fails to achieve the desired results but may also be counterproductive. The introduction of the new education curriculum looks all set to embrace the latter fate. After elapse of almost half of the academic year of the secondary education, there is all-round chaos and anarchy in the imparting of lessons and evaluation of students' performance. Let alone the teachers who are yet to receive training, those received the 5-day training under a special programme called the Dissemination of New Curriculum Scheme of the  Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE) are found to be non-compliant of the DSHE directives. Not only are they teaching in the conventional method they were accustomed to before but also subjecting students of class VI and VII to half-yearly examinations for evaluation of student performances. 

Let it be noted that the curriculum has been introduced to class I and II of the primary schools and class VI and VII at the secondary education level. Now an organising joint-secretary of the association of the headmasters of the country's private secondary educational institutions, according to a report carried in a Bangla contemporary, claims that to his knowledge only 10 per cent schools are following the guidelines of the DSHE for evaluation of students' performances. The rest 90 per cent schools are arranging half-yearly examinations for the classes concerned.

His contention is straightforward---the system has been imposed without enough preparation. One could not agree more with him. Here was an excellent system with the potential of revolutionising education in the country but for the putting of the cart before the horse. This was done when the structured questions (otherwise called creative system) were introduced for evaluation of students' merit. A large majority of teachers failed to set questions let alone guide students to use their individual originality and perception for appreciation of an idea---realistic or abstract, subject, situation or occurrences.

This time the new system is even more challenging and the 5-day training ---of which two days are spent on introduction and conclusion ---are much too insufficient. Also, a good number of the trainers themselves were not up to the task of making things clear to the trainee teachers. The majority of teachers, a product of the old system with little or no further study to hone their teaching skills, are incapable of grasping the new method. Nor are they keen to learn the art of a novel and demanding system requiring full devotion to it. Unsurprisingly, their eagerness to revert to the old system of teaching and evaluation of student performance is quite understandable. They suddenly find themselves out of their comfort zone and therefore dare take the risk of drawing the ire from the higher authorities.

The DSHE is unlikely to take the non-compliance by teachers easy. It issued a notice cautioning the non-compliant teachers and directing headmasters to send the list of such teachers through the district education officers. Here the organising joint-secretary has cited quite an astonishing fact. The fact is that there is a pressure on the headmasters to hold examinations from vested quarters. If exams are not held, note and guide books will have no demand. This goes against the interests of the publishers of those unapproved supplementary books and the teachers involved in writing those.

The DSHE has every right to serve notices against non-compliant teachers but does it not also have to do some soul searching? It took a long time to prepare a guideline for students' performance evaluation by which time teachers grew restive. How were the teachers supposed to evaluate the day-to-day classroom performance? For months confused teachers were clueless about it. This was frustrating for the teachers who were looking for directions on how to evaluate students' performances.

This further shows that the assignment part was left unattended. If the purpose of the new education curriculum were to serve in letter and spirit, not only teachers but also parents and other local people's occasional involvement in the system is necessary. Because students must talk to the elders to know about the subjects they have for their assignments from both guardians and elders who have practical experiences of the events or situations. Without doing such practical tasks, how can students complete the learning process under the new system?

So the crux of the problem lies in the knowledge and skills of teachers who are to undertake the venture of guiding their charges. It is exactly at this point, the 5-day training falls short of requirement which together with the 137,000 teachers yet to be brought under the scanty training only exposes the vulnerability of the system introduced without required preparation. 

Of the total selected teachers, 30,000 teachers could not receive training for various reasons. Under the programme, 418,000 teachers were supposed to be trained but so far 280,000 teachers have received training and 137,000 teachers could not be brought under the training programme at all. But training was of utmost importance. Better it would be to make fresh recruitment of qualified teachers and give them extensive training before their posting so that they could help teachers not smart enough to be equal to the task. If every school had one such teacher, it would serve the purpose well. Or, otherwise roving teams of trainers could be deployed in every district, if not upazilas, for assisting teachers in carrying out their duties.

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