Education still under pressure of colonialism
Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed :
The more educated a nation is, the more developed it is. By education we mean knowing and understanding a subject. In fact, people have been learning from their surroundings since birth. Education helps people to achieve their humanity. That is why education is the backbone of the nation. Education promotes harmony by the power of knowledge, removes prejudices and enlightens the society. At present education is being divided into two categories – general education and vocational or technical education. The world is moving towards rapid development due to the advancement of general education as well as vocational education. Therefore, career-oriented education is essential for total development. Questions have also been raised about the usefulness of our education.
Before independence, since 1947 to 1971 we had been acquainted colonial system of education. After post liberation period and till today we do not see any change in our educational system. This tenure span is almost 50 years. We are rotating our existing traditional system of education. There happened some changes from time to time. Do they mean the real change or reformation? There is a familiar proverb- “All that glitters is not gold.” There are millions of students, who belong to GPA 5+. But the standard is still a question.
Entrepreneurship education is essential not only to shape up the mind-sets of young people but also to provide the skills, knowledge and attitudes that are central to develop an entrepreneurial culture. Entrepreneurs play the role of catalyst to achieve economic and social development, GDP growth, promoting innovation, fostering employment generation and equity development. Entrepreneurship education is similar but not the same curriculum of business education. It requires motivation, inspiration, creation of risk taking tendency, coordination, networking, competition, business secrecy, trend analysis so on and so forth along with the business courses like management, marketing, finance, accounting etc. Entrepreneurship education includes basic scientific, ICT, innovation topics too along with hands on skill development and efficiency enhancement. It could be divided into two major heads namely entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship training.
Earlier, there were no kindergartens or any English medium school or institution. Today there are innumerable numbers of such institution in different areas as in both rural and urban. In those institutions, the minor boys and girls from the age group of 5 to 6 years are supposed to read 8 to 10 books for a particular subject. Even they are taught topics or subject matter like the boys and girls from the age group of 15 to 20. It creates many problems. It becomes a matter of burden and boring to the students. As if the guardians think that, their children will leap up from down to top over a night. As a result, the boys and girls are over burdened and put under heavy pressure. How do they take it- is a matter to think? It definitely affects their immature brain.
There are a number of problems in the educational sector. In order to remove the problems the primary and secondary education system need to be rearranged and reformed. The following are the suggestions and recommendations by which primary and secondary education may come under the purview of reformation and rearrangement. The education may be categorized and classified as general education, technical, specialized education, science and ICT based education, sports and civil defense education and finally Religion, and Culture based education. For smooth functioning of the above categorical education, the central control or responsibility may be given to the different ministries instead of a single ministry.
The general education may be dealt by Education Ministry. Science aspects may have their control from the Ministry of Science and Technology. Again, culture and religious aspect may be dealt by Ministry of Culture and Religion respectively. Now curriculum or any ideal syllabuses have been yet to be prepared. So long, it has been treated very casual. The controlling departments or ministries may take responsibility of their own job like curriculum, syllabus, policy-making etc. Above all coordination of different ministries is necessary and proper maintenance is also needed.
One of the steps taken by the government of Bangladesh to spread education at all levels is the distribution of free books among 100 per cent of the students. Stipend system has been introduced from primary to secondary level to advance women’s education. At present 26,193 primary schools have been nationalized. A significant number of teachers’ jobs have come under the umbrella of MPO. In 1990, the percentage of children enrolled in school was 61, now it has increased to 96.6 per cent. The ‘Education Assistance Trust Act, 2012’ has been enacted and the ‘Education Assistance Trust’ has been set up to ensure the education of poor and meritorious students who are deprived of education facilities.
But despite all these, the universality of education is not coming. Prevailing education system is not cutting misery and giving us any satisfaction. The wind of change is not coming in education. Therefore, we have to adapt a demand driven education system to suit the current and changing situation and give priority to a mass and job-oriented education policy. Without the implementation of the above mentioned education policy, Bengalis will never be economically liberated. Only with a sound education policy and its successful implementation, Bengalis will become efficient manpower and proper human resource development will be materialized. Without education and human resource development, our progress will be hampered. Development will only limit to paper and float on air. Therefore, it is essential for a balanced education policy and at the same time education and technology must be made human resource development friendly environment with the utilization of proper investment and necessary treatment as well. No solution will come with any other alternative. So let’s establish our national dignity by formulating a beautiful education policy and developing skilled human resources.
(The writer is former Deputy Director General, Bangladesh Ansar & VDP).
