New Curriculum Significant Areas Of Change In The Offing

Masum Billah :
Usuallyin in every ten years a country changes its curriculum. Our current curriculum was developed in 2012 and as per this account we are waiting to see another new curriculum to be introduced in 2022 that promises to develop the future generation with the skills of 21st century. Hence, our new curriculum will be competency based with the principles of innovation, establishing mutual connection and accountability.
Ralph Tylor, educationalist and curriculum specialist gave an idea of curriculum in 1956 where he tried to clarify the idea of curriculum through four questions such as -(i) what objectives a school will achieve (ii) through which experiences the objectives will be achieved (iii) how these learning experiences can be analyzed and synthesized and (iv) how the achieved objectives will be assessed. According to UNESCO, “A curriculum is an educational project defining: (a) the aims, goals and objectives of an educational action; (b) the ways, means and activities employed to achieve these goals; (c) the methods and instruments required to evaluate the success of the action.”
In our proposed new curriculum from pre-primary to grade three will have no summative assessment. Hundred percent assessment will be formative clearly hinting no annual examination will take place in these grades that definitely invites appreciation. However, teachers of these grades must have pure knowledge, expertise, orientation and training to deal with formative assessment in the perspective of child psychology. The basic objective of this stage is to ensure that children grow with inquisitive quality and know how to seek, read and write. They don’t acquire the skills of free reading and so, teachers’ guide should be the principal teaching learning materials. Children will gain learning competency through games, work, and expertise that really sounds very good as our children have to face huge burden in the current practice. From grade four to five seventy percent formative and thirty percent summative assessment will take place that will be sixty -forty percent from grade six to eight , in SSC fifty -fifty and in higher secondary thirty-seventy percent formative and summative assessment respectively.
From 2022 new books will be provided to the students of grade one and two, six and seven. The students of class eight will receive the new book from 2023 and the students of class nine will receive new books on new curriculum in 2024 and since then no group division such as arts, commerce and science will exist. They will have to sit for public examination on the contents of class ten only and group choice will be selected in grade eleven. In higher secondary there will be two public examinations-one in eleven class and another one in twelve class but the total scores will be counted on the average results of both eleven and twelve class examination. Some educationists opine that students will have to read science, technology, language, mathematics, social science, history, geography and literature equally in the secondary level. They will have the opportunity to gather knowledge in all these subjects that they miss in the current curriculum. The science students don’t show interest to read history and arts students don’t read real science subjects.
Contact period as per UNESCO means the time learners spend inside and beyond classroom with teachers actively. Instructional time means in the classroom or in the virtual environment where learners use time actively in any learning-related activity. In OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and its allied countries 52 percent of total learning time is spent for teaching mother language, mathematics, arts and crafts in the primary level which is 42 percent in the secondary level. In our proposed curriculum enough time has been allocated for teaching mother tongue, mathematics and arts and culture which is 60 percent of the total school learning time in the pre-primary level and in the primary level it is 56 percent. In nine and ten grades 45 percent is kept for teaching English, social science and science. The average learning hour from grade one to five is 799 hours and from grade six to eight 919 hours. The total working days have been counted as 185 days. The educational institutions shall remain closed two days a week preferably Friday and Saturday. The current practice entails 32 days to complete SSC examination that will be done in five working days because of subject arrangement and evaluation technique in the new curriculum. Also it takes 24 days to conduct two terminal examinations that will be completed in ten days in the new curriculum. Observing Martyr’s Day, International Mother Language Day, Father of the Nation’s birth day, Independence Day and Victory Day have been considered as working days as learning hours are included in these events. Eighty nine OECD and its allied countries’ yearly average school days are 185 days. In 23 European countries’ average school days are 181 which is different in different states of India such as it 192 days in Meghalaya but 200 days in Maharashtra.
Arts and culture plays a significant role in developing human qualities and aesthetic sense along with making teaching attractive and enjoyable. It also promises to develop creative faculties of the students. The proposed curriculum has put much emphasis on this subject. It is expected that it will help develop good relations with parents and other family members. ‘Arts and crafts’ is supposed to work as vehicles to develop connection and establish bridge among people of various groups and clans scattered across the country. We also propose how community people can be involved in the teaching learning process and a guideline should have been in the curriculum.
‘Curriculum Development and Revision Committee’ has developed the outline of the proposed curriculum which things will be taught in curriculum. Before this stage NCTB conducted a series of workshops, focus-group discussions, talked to the education specialists and different stakeholders. Finally, the outline of the curriculum was uploaded on NCTB website for further comments and feedback that we must appreciate. Now is the time to raise it in the NCCC (National Curriculum Coordination Committee) for final approval. On their approval, new books will be developed which means still miles to go before we sleep.
(Mr. Masum Billah works for BRAC Education, previously taught in cadet colleges and Rajuk College and regularly writes on educational and social issues. He is the president of English Teachers’ Association of Bangladesh (ETAB). Email: masumbillah65@gmail.com)