Dr Ronjit Podder :
Vision 2041 is a national strategic plan announced by the foresighted leader Sheikh Hasina, honourable Prime Minister of Bangladesh, with a view to further developing the socio-economic standing of the country. In order to materialise the Vision 2041, education needs added attention from state because quality education can change all other sectors gradually. Quality of education is reflected in the activities of the human beings and the well-educated citizens behave politely with others in any situations. Way of living and thinking chiefly depend on the quality of education received throughout one’s life from formal and non-formal educational institutions, and informal sources. However, quality in the formal education depends chiefly on how the learners are led through experiences by the teachers, educational leaders, and managers and administrators. Although teachers and educational institutions, as a whole, influence the life of every person through instilling ethics and values in them, teachers, educational leaders, and education managers play a vital role in forming the character of the learners; and if good habits can be formed in student-life, students usually practise those habits throughout their lives. Through good practices, the educational institutions keep on influencing the learners. The way teachers behave (teach, assess, mentor, provide feedback, settle conflicts, appreciate for good jobs, etc.) with students, colleagues, guardians, and the employees of the institutions has powerful effect and impact on the learners.
People in the education administration plan what experiences the learners would be led through, how will the targeted experiences be given to students, what teaching-learning materials to be used, what might be the possible challenges, and the challenges would be minimised or removed. Therefore, staff having pedagogical education and skills are required in the education administration and management jobs. If people working in the education administration and management posts do not know what education really means, how children learn, how to deal with the children and the other stakeholders, how to assess students’ learning in different subjects, how to mentor students and colleagues, how to train guardians to take care of their children, and monitor the activities of the students as well the colleagues and provide feedback, the organisations cannot run well. In order to be knowledgeable and skilled in the pedagogical matters, one has to study 4-year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) in Bangladesh or Bachelor of Teaching (BT) in New Zealand and Australia or they have to study for at least one/two years of teaching qualifications such as one-year B.Ed., one/two-year Diploma in Education or Master in Education. However, if the education administration and management staff do not have the stated experiences, the educational institutions cannot run well as those people do not really know what the teachers are teaching, how they are teaching, how the teachers are assessing the learning of students, etc. and as a result they cannot very well supervise their colleagues. What happens as a result is that, the educational institutions fail to provide skilled workforce with integrity in other sectors. Learning, forming the moral base, love for other people, sympathy and empathy develops in a person through long practices in the educational institutions. If the education operatives are not aware of the philosophy of education and child psychology, the education institutions will produce many certificate holders devoid of the essence of education. Those staffs in the educational institutions never know how to better handle the students and fail to instill values, ethics, moralities pedagogically and effectively in the learners. Therefore, I would like to appeal to the pro-people and education-friendly Prime Minister to take necessary steps so that educationists can work in the education administration and management of Bangladesh. What happens currently is that, officers without having pedagogical knowledge, skills, and teaching experiences are being posted in the education administration and management and after being posted, they learn about the pedagogical ideas from their colleagues.
However, most of them never become confident in managing education in the country. Directorate of Madrasah Education (DME), NTRCA (Non-Government Teachers Registration and Certification Authority), and National Academy for Primary Education (NAPE) are run by officials who do not have required knowledge and skills of pedagogy or of teaching at any level. They may have the experiences in running administration in different offices but that experience should not be considered as the passport to be posted in education management posts. Those people who come to the education administration posts consider themselves ‘jack of all trades’ but the nation needs specialised people in the education sector to achieve the Vision-2041 smoothly. How can we expect quality education management from those officers? As they do not have field experiences, and as they have not seen education as insiders, decisions taken by them are not, in most cases, consistent with the needs in the field level. As a result, most educational projects do not have tangible impact on the stakeholders. If there is dearth of expert educationists in the country, please prepare them with support from the state; give them scholarship to study Education (Master, Ph.D.) in the reputed universities of the world, encourage them to conduct research, etc. so that they can very efficiently run the educational organizations. It is a great loss for the nation to deploy staff in the education administration having no knowledge of pedagogy. Is it reasonable to deploy a clerk with high educational qualifications and experience at the post of a principal only because s/he has run the office well? If it happens like this, what might happen in that college? Will a college teacher be able to run a police station well if s/he is posted there as an Officer in Charge? Of course not as they have not training and experience in that field. Then how is it possible for officers in other sectors to run an educational organization properly having no pedagogical education and experience? So far as we know, not a single constable is posted in the police station without training. Is humanising children through education so easy? In the developed countries, education is attached more importance to build a humanised nation.
Let me shade a little light on the education projects. In many education projects, we see some Project Directors (PDs) from administration cadre. They confess in different meetings that they have heard the word CPD (Continuous Professional Development), pedagogy, teaching methods and approaches, teaching techniques, assessment, teaching aids, lesson plans, mentoring, teacher guide, etc. for the first time. Some of them sometimes confess that they do not know what the Teachers’ Training Colleges do; they do not know if teacher training college teachers are cadre officers or non-cadre or they are instructors or lecturers (Assist. Professors, Associate professors, Professors). They run an education project with superficial knowledge of education and most of the education projects do not have much impact on the stakeholders. That is one side of the injustice to the nation but there are some other kinds of injustice committed to the service receivers at the micro-level.
The teacher training colleges are specialised institutions which are dedicated to prepare qualified teachers for the secondary level of education. In the BCS (Bangladesh Civil Service), no one without any degree or diploma in Education is allowed to choose teacher training colleges. The teacher educators posted in teacher training colleges educate and train practising and would-be secondary teachers, and disseminate curriculum, take part in curriculum development and textbook writing, etc. They become expert in the field of education by doing these tasks continuously. What happens in the teacher training colleges is that, sometimes teachers and the principals and the vice-principals having no degree or diploma in education are posted in the teacher training colleges. How is it possible to deploy a teacher or an administrator who does not have any knowledge and skills of pedagogy in a specialised college like teacher training colleges? This is one of the reasons why the teacher training colleges fail, in most cases, to produce better teachers for the secondary schools.