Today’s priorities in education

Sensing the chaos and disorderliness after World War-I, Irish poet WB Yeats wrote in 1919, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”. People in power, were unable to set things right or at least to bring positive and significant changes in the disorder. Similar situation has been prevailing in Bangladesh education sector and its sub-sectors. In most cases, the right person is not set in the right place creating obstacles in the way to achieving the set goals. It is like, pain in all parts of the body, where to rubcurative balm? My experience as a teacher educator for the last 27 years, I can say for sure, we need to pay deep attention to different areas of education; deep attention is needed because education can heal malaise in all other sectors of the society. In other words, quality in education can ensure quality in all other sectors of a country. In the recent past, anti-discrimination movement got popularity and there was a massive mass movement in the country to minimise discrimination in all spheres of life. Hopefully, education will draw the attention of those in power to the new situation. Attention is necessary as our education system fails to do justice to the nation; we cannot humanise our children and cannot teach our children the sense of equity, equality, humility, democracy, and human rights.
The way we teach our children, the way we behave with them, the norms and values that we try to instill in them should be redesigned. In order to do that, personnel having education and training in the related field must be engaged. To prepare humanised citizens having higher civic senses, we need well-educated and trained curriculum planners and textbook writers; education administration having pedagogical knowledge and skills; trained, responsible, and motivated teachers; flexible and unified curriculum with provisions to adjust the local needs; comfortable work environment and available resources; handsome pay with social honour and security; assessment that covers practical problem solving alongside pen and paper tests; punishment for wrongdoings and reward for good deeds making all the concerned happy (This kinds of a practice is called restorative justice. Restorative justice seeks to examine the harmful impact of a crime and then determines what can be done to repair that harm while holding the person who caused it accountable for their actions); recognising teachers’ achievements so that they feel elated; research to be made compulsory at all levels of education but a provision for action research at primary and secondary levels. Alongside teaching values theoretically, respecting other people’s opinions and rights must be practised in all educational institutions; nurturing creativity; including social skills in the curriculum; technology facilities; internship facilities at all levels of education so that the learners can have real-life experiences and understand
how people engaged in different occupations feel; and thus, the learners may start to honour every work.
Although I have stated some areas to pay attention to, I am elaborating a single area, for example, to shed light on how unfairness is prevailing in the education sectors. I would like to talk in details about the well-educated and trained curriculum planners and textbook writers in today’s write up although I may focus on other smaller areas, too. Other stated areas can also be analysed in the similar ways in different occasions. I can talk about the mismatches in National Curriculum & Textbook Board (NCTB), Govt. Teachers’ Training Colleges (TTCs), National Academy for Educational management (NAEM) who are responsible to develop the curriculum of primary and secondary levels of education, write textbooks; preparing the secondary teachers through proper education and training; and providing training to the college teachers and the principals respectively.
It is expected that, employees with pedagogy knowledge and skills would be posted in NCTB as they have to consider the psychology of the children in preparing the curriculum and the textbooks. But in Bangladesh, this does not happen in most cases. Many staffs have been working in NCTB without having any background of studying Education. Although almost all the readers know about Education, I would like to shed some light for those who may not know about the Education subject. Education is a discipline where goals of education; curriculum development strategies; what to consider in developing teaching-learning resources including the textbooks; teaching and learning methods and techniques; teaching and learning theories; teaching-learning resources; use of technology; how to best deal with the younger children; how to be culturally sensitive; how to assess the learning of students; how to develop democratic practice in the learners; curriculum, etc. are taught and practised. Although those who are educated and expert in Education are expected to be posted in NCTB, many having no degree or diploma in Education are posted there. How will they prepare a better curriculum and a better textbook? They themselves never studied Education or most of them did not study any course on curriculum but they occupy the posts of Curriculum Specialists! The names of the posts are Curriculum Specialists, the person occupying the posts need not to be a curriculum specialist in the real sense of the term. It is like – the name of a person is Pilot but he cannot fly a plane or never flew a plane before. When will we reform this culture of dumping people in NCTB who are not right persons here although may be a better fit elsewhere?
Teaching staff and the principals who have never studied Education or pedagogy are also posted in the Teachers’ Training Colleges (TTC). How can one who never studied and practised the methods, approaches, and techniques of teaching; learning theories; different assessment and testing strategies; curriculum designing; inclusive education; educational psychology; pedagogy to deal with the younger learners, can better manage educational matters in the TTCs? How will they teach in Bachelor of Education and Master of Education classes when they themselves have not studied Education? Should this be allowed to happen? Similar situation is prevailing in NAEM, too. There are some posts of Training Specialists. Although some of them do not have any background in Education and training, they have been rendering their service (!) to the nation whole-heartedly! As a result, money is spent on training but the training is not being effective, according to the participants of the training programmes. According to the trainees, the performance of a small number of trainers is excellent and the most others cannot even draw the attention of the participants.
Why should the people studied Education be posted in NCTB, TTCs, and NAEM? Because, the students studying Education have to study curricula and education policies of different countries; and they have to undergo practicum called teaching practice (TP) in schools. In schools, the trainees practise the learning theories, strategies of teaching and assessment that they learnt at the TTCs and Institute of Education and Research (IER). That is, the students studying Education (Bachelor of Education) try to implementthe ideas which they learn in the TTCs or in IERs in different universities. This learning of theories and new ideas and implementing them in schools followed by teacher educators’ constructive feedback make them aware of the dynamics of education; they are expected to be able to better handle the curriculum, perform better as trainers, and implement the curriculum in a better way as they learn through real-life practice. They know how education system functions in Bangladesh and in other countries.
Has it happened anywhere that one has been allowed to work in a police station or in the army or in a hospital to treat a patient without related education and prior training? Why is this happening in education sector? Is it good for the nation to deploy those who do not have related education or any prior experience? It can be said for sure that more than 50 per cent of the operatives in NCTB do not have any degree/diploma or any other acceptable training.Why do we think educational activities can be accomplished by anyone irrespective of their educational background? Why does the concerned authority not find those having pedagogical knowledge and skills and set them in NCTB? Understanding the importance of studying Education, some of the NCTB staff who have been serving at NCTB for a longer period of time have achieved Master of Education degree from IER, Dhaka University in evening shift.
Like NCTB, TTCs, and NAEM, educational administration posts are also occupied by those who never studied Education in their life. How will the staff ensure quality in education and training those who themselves are not much aware of the subtleties in the area? How will one develop curriculum, training for the teachers, and monitor and mentor the teachers to check if they are following the right approach in teaching and assessment or not? How can we expect better education keeping these people in the steering? These anomalies in education sector be considered seriously if we want to transform our edu-culture in the country. If we fail to set the right person in the right place, the situation would never change positively. We expect that, the current Education Adviser of the interim government would have a look at the matter as an essential part of reform initiative in the education sector.