Education, and Bangladesh

Teacher development of Brazil and Bangladesh

2010-12-20T23:52:00.000+06:00

The geographical distance is long but both the countries have same kind of experience on education. In recently years, Brazil develops rapidly and Bangladesh is under developing process in terms of economical growth. But, regarding education, I think both the country are in same stage.

I was reading an article on teacher development of Brazil where the write nicely describes the issue. On the other hand, I have some experience on teacher development of Bangladesh. When I compare this situation, I find an interesting similarity is that in academic discourses, both the countries believe in teacher development nicely in the training process and organizational procedures but totally different picture is found in implementation process.

Both the countries had a rich education culture but in colonial period, they lost their education heritage. On the other hand, in the time of free market economy, countries had to capture the open economy culture. This culture makes the services as the products and thus the vision of education is very diversified than their culture, heritage and history.

Some days ago, I was reading a book of Paolo Freirrie who was from Brazil named Pedagogy of the oppressed. The author nicely explores how the education process was being a tool of rulers. It was also explored in the book, if the oppressed people want get rid from their current situation, they should use education for their own purpose, not to use it for rulers purpose. Brazil is doing totally a reverse what Freirrie said. And same situation in Bangladesh.

Is The Quality of Education Really Increasing?

2010-06-30T01:07:00.002+06:00

Each year after publishing the results of SSC or HSC, questions on the quality of education are raised not only by educators but also from the general people. When people see that more than 80 thousand students get the highest grade, they naturally show their curiosity in education quality to see whether there is a positive correlation between their high performances and its reflection on society. A number of them believe that there is a positive correlation between the increasing highest-grade rate and quality education; but when a head teacher from a top-rated school wonders about that positivity, it should be reconsidered to think about this burning issue.

Opinions can differ but there is a significant problem in discussing the issue of the ‘quality of education’ because there is no definition or indicators to measure the quality of education in Bangladesh. As education at primary level is terminal competency-based, it could be said that if the primary graduates achieve those competencies then quality education is achieved. However, our present evaluation system for primary education is not competency-based. On the other hand, for secondary level schooling, there is nothing like competency which could be measured. So, it is really difficult to discuss the quality of education for this stage. If achieving high grades is being considered as the best reflection of students’ capacity, it could be said that the quality of education for secondary level schooling is increasing day-by-day. However, is this real picture?

The aforementioned head teacher possibly found through first hand experience that the performance situations of the students and their reflections on society are not the same. Syed Manzurul Islam, an English teacher from the University of Dhaka, wrote in another newspaper that 70% of the students admitted to the University of Dhaka are very weak in English, proving the poor quality of education. In another sense, it could be assumed that the highest-grade achievers in SSC should show the same level of performance in HSC with some exceptions. However in each year, we found that a very big number of them were not able to repeat their golden performances. There is little similarity between the same students’ results in SSC and HSC. This is the real picture of our education.

Another head teacher of a famous school in Dhaka believes that the quality of education is on the increase. He points out that some positive changes are occurring in our education system from time to time regarding logical assessments of examination sheets by teachers, teacher training, quality schooling, new teaching-learning provisions etc. This, he believes, is helping the country to increase its quality of education. This teacher may or may not be correct depending on everyone’s own views or perceptions. It is true that some new ideas and techniques have been included in the education system. Teachers are getting more training and learning about new assessment systems etc. This process is continuing despite several people saying that students were not assessed properly in the present assessment system. In Bangladesh, we consider the assessment system as output only, not the part of a teaching-learning provision. We are unable to rearrange this system properly so that students are better evaluated. Another question to consider is that though it is possible to evaluate the students based on the specified terminal competencies, what could be the basis for secondary level? Learning outcomes? There are so many learning outcomes for the secondary level making it too hard to assess in such huge numbers. In our present assessment system, we assess only the students’ knowledge level, ignoring their holistic performance. This kind of result is actually the reflection of a few competencies, not the students’ overall performance. If we do not assess students’ overall performances, it is not possible to say if the quality of education is truly increasing.

This year two subjects are assessed in Srijonsheel (creative) way. It is not known to us how the answer-sheet is evaluated but experience says it is too hard to assess the Srijonseel answer-sheets. To do this, teachers have to have proper training as well as mind open to new things. Students can express their creativity in different ways. If the teachers’ thinking process goes in a straight line and fails to understand the nature of the creativity, then this whole process will be questionable. Our experience says that if the students solve any mathematical problems in another way, teachers are not wiling to give them proper marks. So how is it possible for such teachers to evaluate creative answers?

According to the Bloom’s taxonomy, the questions or learning outcomes can be divided into six sub-domains: knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. For a standardized questionnaire, it is important to generate questions from all these sub-domains. However, if the teacher evaluates both the knowledge and synthesis level questions in same way, what will happen? We do not know whether such situations came about this year in the SSC examination. All education boards can analyze the answer-sheets of Srijonsheel questions so that they get a deeper understanding of the issue. After fully analyzing the situation, a massive initiative should be initiated.

Students’ performances do not only depend solely on themselves. There are many factors which can control and affect their performances. Therefore it is not wise to say anything about the quality education if these factors are being ignored. There is an input-process-output model by UNESCO where there are various kinds of indicators under the three main parts and pupils’ learning achievements are only one of those. So, if we do not know much more about the other indicators and if those indicators are not reflected properly in our education system, we cannot claim that the quality of education is being ensured or even increasing.

Should We Not Raise the Question Regarding Quality of the Education Specialists of Bangladesh?

2009-08-19T10:19:00.003+07:00

Bangladesh National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) has set some classwise attainable and terminal competencies for the students of primary level education of Bangladesh. It is expected that students will be able to achieve those both types of competencies after completion their five-years primary education. The total number of terminal competencies was 53 when those were made in 1988. But after reviewing in 2000, finally 50 terminal competencies was set which are fully or partially came from the previous 53 competencies. No such new competency was considered in the final list.

(Competencies for Hospice and Palliative Nursing Assistants) Based on those terminal competencies, NCTB has also made lots of classwise attainable competencies for each subject which are, according to them, more specific and measurable. It could be said that one of the characters of the term 'competency' is that it could be measurable. If the character of competency is not like as measurable, that could be considered as either goal or objective. However, though the NCTB claims that the classwise attainable competencies are more specific and measurable than the others, does it true?

'Students will be able to speak the numbers and expressing word of numbers from one to fifty'- this is a competency for grade 1 students. The question is, here, that is that competency really measurable?

We can look at an example. If any student pronounced 48, what does it mean? Is there any way to measure or to be ensured that s/he pronounced either 48 or forty-eight? S/he could think either one or both. Besides, it is not possible, even, for the student to say that actually what he thought at the time of speaking that? So, how would it be measured?

There are lots of that type of competencies found in the both classwise attainable and terminal competencies.

The specialists of education area of Bangladesh had set or made and finalized those competencies. All of them are aware about students' quality of Bangladesh. But, after knowing that, should we not raise question regarding quality of them?