ON EDUCATION IN BANGLADESH

I am not a professional educator nor am I in the teaching profession. However, having spent a significant number of years in social research during my career at home and abroad, I believe I have gathered some acumen on analyzing how some of the institutions in a sector work, and more importantly, why these institutions fail to contribute to the development of the sector. In addition to my experience in social research my attachment with a few elite educational institutions of the country during the last eight years of my career prior to retirement has given me an unique opportunity to observe how the education works. I have tried to summarily assimilate my observations here. Some of my observations might sound too forthright and I intentionally kept it that way because many a times important issues placed with sugar coating tend to be either ignored or totally misunderstood. Essentially I have tried to point out the reasons why our national education system has apparently fallen to pieces and how can it be fixed if measures can be implemented iron-handedly.

1.      Poor quality national curricula: Historically the national curricula has been a subject of subtle experimentation by the colonial rulers. The erstwhile Pakistan Government intentionally devised low quality curricula for East Pakistani students so the Bengalees remain mediocre and therefore, easier to dominate and rule. Undoubtedly they have learnt this trick from the British rulers who followed the same policy throughout their colonies. Despite that during the sixties in East Pakistan era even the non-elite schools always tried to achieve a minimum quality benchmark. Post Bangladesh, whatever little quality control was there had totally evaporated. Lack of quality of officials entrusted with the responsibility of reviewing and designing curricula is one of the key major factor. A visit to the Secondary and Higher Secondary Board offices and speaking to the higher ranking officials will adequately demonstrate this phenomenon. Personally I still remember that the English and Bangla Literature Text Books that we studied every year from class/grade 3 to class/grade 8 had the same contents, just worded a bit differently. I recall that the biography of Rebel Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, Noble Laureate Poet Rabindranath Thakur, our respected Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Begum Rokeya Shakawat, a short story by either Poet Bande Alia Mian or Kaikobad appeared in the text books of class/grade 3 to class/grade 8 every year. Therefore each year the text books contributed to very little or no additional learning from the previous year to the students.

2.      MCQ exam system imposed without proper understanding of how the system works: An experienced educator would know that multiple choice questionnaires are designed in such a way that it challenges the students to think and choose the right answer after carefully analyzing a question based on what they learnt. Therefore, MCQ based exams can even be open book exams but the answers to the questions will never be found in any book because the teachers have to teach the subject in such a way that the students learn the ‘concepts’ rather than ‘contents’ of the text books. Designing the multiple choice questionnaire is therefore, also a huge challenge for the teachers because it requires the teachers to do some deep thinking through to design questions which will force the students to think and analyse their knowledge relevant to the question to determine the correct answers. Implementing MCQ system therefore, also requires substantial redesigning the contents of the text books to incorporate a much higher depth of knowledge. Throughout the academic years the teachers have to keep challenging the students with questions which they have to answer only by analyzing the questions, understanding the related concepts, and applying the concept based knowledge in their analysis to derive the answer. Therefore, the teachers need to be adequately trained to effectively and meaningfully deliver a MCQ based curricula. These steps have not been taken adequately (or perhaps not at all). Instead the MCQ exam system has been ‘super-imposed’ on the antiquated text book based system. As neither the teachers, nor the officials are either capable or trained in managing MCQ systems the super-imposition mentioned above has only resulted in ‘spoon feeding’ the students with the correct answer built within the multiple choice answers which are already either there in the text books or in the so-called guide books. These exams therefore are not designed to test whether the students have learnt/understood the concepts and acquired any analytical ability. No wonder today we have a galaxy of stars of golden GPAs and high performers but having poor in-depth knowledge. The high school graduates in India or in some of the South East Asian countries have much more knowledge than the high school or even college graduates in Bangladesh.

3.      Disjoint between school and college and education and university standard requirements: Typically the HSC/Grade 12 graduates of the country and not sufficiently prepared by the schools to take the load of higher standard curricula in any university of good standing. The overall standard of graduates from Government universities has fallen drastically. There is no doubt that political activities in the Government Universities where the teachers are involved is a highly significant factor in contributing to the decay in the system.

4.      The role of the so-called ‘Coaching Centres’: The coaching centres have become one of the greatest contributors in creating knowledge gap. These centres are run by teachers of various schools and often they poach the students of their own school which is a complete conflict of interest. The sharp rise in the number of coaching centres indicates that the students are not adequately taught in the school. There is also a huge social pressure on the parents because if they do not send their children to well-known expensive coaching centres they are humiliated by their peer groups. In most of the schools once the students get into the 12th grade their attendance in the school falls drastically to a level which is absolutely necessary to retain their enrolment. These students put their entire emphasis on the coaching centres to achieve good results while the schools celebrate their success although the schools have little contribution in their success. Perhaps it is about time that all coaching centres should be banned even though it may sound drastic. Instead the schools should be held strictly accountable for the performance of the students in SSC and HSC.

5.      Private coaching by school teachers: Private coaching is not a crime for school teachers. As they are meagerly paid they need extra money to make their ends meet. However, it becomes a matter of ethics when parents hire the teacher of the same school where their children study to teach the subjects that they teach at school. The result is an unholy alliance between the teachers, the parents and the students because the teacher concentrates on teaching the students only those parts of the subject which are likely to be tested in the exams. In the end, the student hardly learns the subject but knows what to expect in the school exams. When some schools took very stern measures by asking the teachers to stop private coaching of the students of the same school where they work, the practice continued secretly. The teachers of different but similar schools also form unholy alliances and coach the students of other schools but the information on what to teach is exchanged between the teachers. Therefore students still hardly learns the subject but knows what to expect in the school exams.

6.      Quality of teachers: Teaching has become a profession for housewives who want to earn some money for their personal expenses. They are not ‘teaching professionals’, because they are neither trained as teacher and most of them do not have a B.Ed. degree. This is more pronounced in primary schools where some of the teachers may have studied only up to A Level while others are graduates having unimpressive grades. The primary classes are extremely important because that is where the building blocks of education are built. As a result when the primary school students start their middle years they find it extremely difficult to either comprehend the subjects or adjust to the pressure. There is a great need to introduce stringent quality control in both the primary curricula, and introducing mandatory minimum qualifications of teaching staff and specialized teachers training across private and Government primary schools.

7.      Salary of teachers: The fact that salary of teachers are poor makes it one of the least desirable profession. Unlike some countries, a prestigious cadre for professional teachers with well defined qualifications, educational requirement for various grade levels (including Ph.D. for the higher level grades in specific subjects which the teacher teaches), training requirements supported with adequate number of quality training facilities do not exist. This should be a priority for the next decade. Teaching should no longer be the idle housewives’ easy pastime job to make some extra pocket money. A nationwide salary grid commensurate with defined qualifications, educational requirement for various grade levels, training requirements must be developed which should be mandatory for all schools across the Government and private sectors. Needless to say, the salary levels need to be raised substantially to make the teaching profession a lucrative and competitive with high profile private sector pay scale.

8.      Accreditation of Teachers: This system must be seriously introduced with the same rigour with which the doctors are accredited. After gaining the minimum educational requirements to become a teacher, the aspiring teacher must have a registration done from the Ministry of Education which should be made an absolute requirement for all teachers in any school or college across all Government or private schools and colleges. The policy is simple: No accreditation no teaching job. The registration, like a driver’s license, must have a validity period. The renewal must be subject to stringent conditions of having certain number of relevant trainings attended at the continuing professional education (CPE) institute mentioned in the next section. If necessary, passing exams after CPE trainings may be considered in the same way as in some technical professions to ensure that they have actually acquired newer knowledge from the trainings and other CPE activities.

9.      Continuing Professional Education for Teachers: Unknown to many the teaching profession is evolving fast internationally with newer systems, newer curricula, newer methods of teaching, newer ways of ensuring student engagements, the concept of all round education versus grade-centric teaching, etc. Therefore there is a strong need to install a formal continuing professional education (CPE) system at the national level which should be independent of the existing institutions. The institution must have permanent staff with proper career path. These staff should be not be transferable either permanently or on deputation to any other Government institution. The staff must have Ph.D. in subjects related to teaching and research methodology. The institute will provide Certificates/ evidences of a teacher having completed the required number/hours of training and other CPE activities which would enable them to get to the next level of seniority to a higher pay scale and opportunity to teach in higher grades. The institute must also have a strong research wing which will work on how best to adapt the new and evolving techniques in the context of our system as well as developing more effective research based home grown teaching methodologies. Although the CPE institute is proposed as an independent body it can also be part of the Teachers Training Institute whilst retaining its independence. The scope of work of the two institutions should be very clearly laid out to ensure that there is no unnecessary duplication of efforts on the same subject or activity.

10.  Garage-top universities: The question remains where do the millions of school graduates who graduate with poor knowledge and grades go to? This is where the large number of mushrooming ‘garage-top’ private universities come in. For these low quality universities getting students is not difficult because they accept any high school/ college graduates as long as they can pay and eventually when these students graduate from those universities, they form a big chunk of the so called literate unemployed population. Generally, their knowledge level is poor and they acquire zero employable skills.

11.  Research in curricula and pedagogy: The Teachers Training Institute (TTI) needs to be significantly strengthened to bring it up to the level of an international institute where advanced researches on curricula content are to be undertaken. Together with the proposed CPE institute the TTI should act as an advisory body to the Government. Ideally this institute should become a centre of excellence in the region where researchers from other countries can also come to learn as well as contribute in the researches. The institute should continuously update the national curricula to ensure that the education is of world class quality and train teachers on how to best deliver the curricula. This process will require perhaps a decade but it must begin as soon as possible.

12.  Quality Control of Schools/Colleges: It is almost public knowledge that the role of School Inspectors who visit the schools is quite dubious. Over the last several decades these group of Inspectors have done nothing substantive to contribute towards improving the system. It is best to abolish these inspectors system and encourage the schools and colleges to become committed to self governance.

13.  Creating employable graduates: Whether it is a Government University or a private university, the graduates from any of the universities (except a few private universities) are not equipped with any skill (including simple business communication) or subject knowledge to become quickly employed. I had published an article on this subject in LinkedIn a few months back that I would refer the readers to at this link https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6659102121834754049/.

In summary I would note the following:

a.      Development of an education policy that spells out specific goals with timelines which must be mandatory for all schools and colleges following the National Curricula. We do not need UNDP or World Bank funded foreign experts for this. The think tanks in our country are knowledgeable enough to do this. They can work through a Task Force of the Government. The policy will take into consideration all the above points, and emphasize a ‘holistic education’ that balances both academic as well as non-academic parameters.

b.     Creation of an Education Cadre which will require Ph.D level education for all bureaucrats at the Ministry, Departments, Education Board, TTI and the proposed CPE Institutions with attractive salary and benefits. The members of this cadre should not be transferable elsewhere within the Government.

c.      Create a minimum education and training requirement schedule for all teachers in both private and public schools. Schools that will not fulfill the requirements should be fined heavily or even closed down.

d.     Create a minimum pay structure for teachers both in the public and private schools which should attract talented individuals to take up teaching as a professional career.

e.     Revise the age old national curricula with an action plan to:

i.       Bring up the contents at par with international standard within a targeted time frame (we may use the Indian syllabi only as an example);

ii.      Create milestones, for the time frame which is to be strictly monitored by an independent body (which could be the same body who will develop the policy).

f.       Ban all coaching centres and guide books. Instead teachers must ensure that the school learning is sufficiently comprehensive.

g.      Make Arabic language (not Islamic studies) and English Language compulsory for all schools so that by the end of the schooling every student has learnt both Arabic and English as additional languages. In case of Arabic, the sole objective should be to teach the language, not to read the Holy Qur’an which will continue to done by Madrshas. For non-Muslim students similar policy is to be devised. These subjects must be a part of the SSC and HSC exams and students must get passing marks/grades.

h.     Strengthen the Teachers Training Institute and develop it into a world class centre of excellence to conduct research on developing world class curricula and pedagogy.

i.        Creation of a Continuous Professional Education (CPE) institution to provide Certificates/ evidences of a teacher having completed the required number/hours of training and other CPE activities which would enable them to get to the next level of seniority to a higher pay scale and opportunity to teach in higher grades. The institute must also have a strong research wing which will work on how best to adapt the new and evolving techniques in the context of our system as well as developing more effective research based home grown teaching methodologies.

The author, Faisal Kader, has graduated with Honours in Economics from the University of Dhaka in 1980, MBA from IBA in 1983 and obtained a Diploma in Legal Studies from the Herzing Career College in Canada. In course of his 35 years of diverse experience he has served in a number of senior leadership responsibilities in international, multi-national and large national organisations in Bangladesh, UAE and Canada. Upon retirement 2019 he joined a footwear manufacturing company named Alfa Retails Limited as the shareholding Managing Director. The Company markets their own brand ‘Alfa Style’ footwear through their own retail outlets. Faisal Kader can be reached at [email protected]. Profile information available on LinkedIn: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/faisalkader/. For entertainment please visit the author’s YouTube Channel at: https://www.youtube.com/user/Feezy99