Md. Bayazid Khan :
The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education formed a consultation committee for submitting recommendations on quality improvement of teaching-learning activities in primary education and its infrastructural development and management systems.
If challenges can be identified properly then it can be easier to find out the ways of addressing them. Therefore, the committee needs to identify the challenges in the aforesaid areas of primary education to make recommendations.
The following challenges hinder teachers to impart quality teaching in the classrooms and supervisors and instructors to perform duties satisfactorily in regard to providing quality learning to children.
Almost every year a huge number of minimum meritorious graduate newcomers enter into the teaching profession in primary education with great enthusiasm. But after a few years they become demotivated and feel the profession monotonous as the profession has no career path for getting timely promotion and incentives.
Moreover, the salary and other financial benefits are very poor in primary education compared to other professions resulting in dissatisfaction to perform duties properly. In addition, a significant number of newly recruited talented teachers leave the profession every year because of getting better jobs. Those who remain in the profession always suffer from an inferiority complex as they think that their qualifications never match the job.
The dissatisfaction reflects their performances in teaching that definitely deprive learners from attaining quality learning.
Like teachers, supervisory officers feel a lack of motivation due to the limited opportunities for career growth. The primary education sector does not offer many options for advancement (regarding promotion, scale upgradation etc), which can discourage both teachers and supervisory education officers from performing at their best.
Teachers and supervisory officers of remote, hilly and low- lying areas feel monotonous in jobs due to working in the same working places year after year. Existing transfer policy has no mandatory rules for their transfer into better or desired places after a certain period that certainly demotivated them to work committedly.
On the other hand, teaching at primary schools is the most challenging profession compared to other teaching professions. A primary school teacher needs to get a break after imparting a lesson for performing better quality teaching in the classroom. Considering this, rural and remote schools have shortages of teachers.
Teachers also need support from supervisory officers for their professional development. Moreover, they also need to provide complexity free and quick administrative and financial services from education offices.
Regarding these sufficient numbers of supervisors, teachers and office staff needed. But the reverse situation prevails in this sector. Huge number of vacant officials at field level primary education offices and training institutions along with teachers in remote schools jeopardize the quality of learning.
Training is the key to impart better quality teaching in the classrooms. Though teachers are receiving multifarious training but a few teachers apply achieved knowledge and skills in classroom teaching.
This is because of a poor monitoring system. Supervisory officers are not considered to orient about the training contents/ methods that teachers are receiving. They too have few opportunities for professional development.
Children need to be assessed frequently in the classrooms to identify their needs as well as provide quick feedback for clarifying their understanding in lessons.
Assessments focus more on memorization rather than critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving, which does not prepare students well for future education. Moreover, there has no mechanism for assessing children’s foundational learning skills in literacy and numeracy.
Excessive paperwork and non-teaching tasks reduce the time teachers can spend on planning lessons and taking preparations for teaching. High volume of department and other departments’ administrative tasks also hamper supervisors’ main responsibilities. On the contrary, due to poor mechanisms of accountability and motivation, teachers and supervisory officers are not performing satisfactorily in their respective duties.
Monitoring officers also have too many schools to oversee to provide effective and constructive feedback to teachers. Limited visits or poor-quality supervision can hinder teachers’ improvement in providing quality learning.
Many remote primary schools, especially in newly nationalised primary schools, lack basic physical facilities, teaching aids, and learning materials. Teachers often have to work in challenging environments with minimal support, which affects their motivation and ability to provide quality education.
In decision making or policy developing activities involvement of experienced teachers and supervisors is very poor in numbers resulting in unrealistic and not implementable for policy development in most cases.
Apart from the above mentioned challenges primary education sector has more issues such as no support at home for underprivileged children to prepare next day’s homework or clear understanding of everyday lessons, school closure due to natural or man-made disasters, insufficient contact hour, poor attention to the classroom or school activities because of malnutrition and hungry of children etc.
Addressing aforesaid challenges requires a holistic approach, focusing on providing resources, reducing administrative burdens, and ensuring training, support, and fair compensation for teachers and supervisors. Increasing parental and community engagement along with strengthening accountability and monitoring systems could also drive improvements in primary education quality.
In addition, after or before school programme for underprivileged and dropped out children, home/ community schooling or access to blended method of teaching regarding continuation of the learning process during natural or man-made disasters, equitable transfer policy for teachers & supervisors, reforms in appointment policy of teachers to bring only interested graduates in teaching, developing rational career path keeping the provision of timely promotion etc may become effective in improving primary education.
Therefore, the recently formed consultative committee by the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education aiming to improve primary education may consider aforesaid challenges and recommendations to improve primary education.
(The writer works for primary
education).
