Education exposes its systemic malaise

It was a national disgrace of outsize proportion. The leakage of question papers of secondary and higher secondary examinations was not enough. Now the question papers of the primary school final examination has leaked. But the minister concerned has duly denied this plain truth. When television channels showed through spot coverage how the tender-aged examinees made innocuous admission that the question paper available on the Internet the previous night were same as the one they attempted in the examination halls, the top authority of the primary education plays the proverbial ostrich. Parents of some of the examinees also expressed their exasperation and anger at the question paper leak.
What a sad day for Bangladesh! Even children in their budding years, who were yet to be familiar with the world of intrigues, lies and treachery were suddenly made a party to a crime by default. How did they react when teachers of coaching centres came to help them prepare the answers to the leaked questions overnight? They perhaps looked at their venerable teachers with disbelief. Then how did their parents react? How many could resist the temptation of downloading the leaked question papers and preparing their wards for those? It required steely nerves for parents not to compromise with their moral high ground and downgrade themselves before their sons' and daughters' eyes particularly when they knew others would not be equally uncompromising on this issue.
Nowhere in the world are young learners subjected to so many public examinations before they get ready for higher study. In fact, the introduction of a public examination was a consequence largely of mistrust of educational institutions and their teachers. The strongest argument in favour of a public examination at this stage was that primary school ending examinations held under arrangement of each school were performed casually and left enough room for nepotism and favouritism by the local influential and privileged to become the order of the day. Their sons and daughters were awarded higher grades or scores when in fact students from families wielding no such influence were subjected to poor and unjust evaluation of their answer scripts. More importantly, there was no urge to perform better nor to improve the quality of education. A uniform standard was missing as a result.   
True, primary students have been compelled to fall into a set pattern. Surely they have learnt to take study seriously --perhaps more seriously than was necessary. Extensive coaching has taken all their spare time, leaving no room for games and sports or other outdoor activities. The system has simply robbed them of their childhood. They are not taught to analyse problems, appreciate the world around them, Nature in its myriad moods but like the parrot of Rabindranath's "Tota Kahini" (Tale of parrot), cheerless puthis (books) are forced down their throat. In Tagore's satire, the soul of the parrot left its body as a result of so much contrivance. In the case of children in this country, the pressure is proving too much for them and about to squeeze the soul out of their body. If this is no outrage on the innocent ones, what else is! For God's sake, please stop this nonsense. Better it would be to abandon the public examinations for classes V and VIII.
Young learners of the country have become victim to a rat race their elders have started unthinkingly. What will a class-V student do with a GPA 5 or for that matter a so-called golden one of that type when it is achieved by foul means they are possibly not fully aware of. If the souls otherwise incorruptible are so introduced to corruption so early -and that too through collaboration of teachers, parents and the people in charge of education -it surely is a damning comment on the entire system of education.
To address the problems facing education at the primary and secondary levels, what the wise men have done is nothing short of putting the cart before the horse. When there is a need for fixing the problem of schools at the grass-roots level, they came up with a solution that has only earned the system ill reputation and made the life of the learners who should be at the centre of the focus miserable. Infrastructure is important but not as important as the quality of teaching. The plain truth is that the defect lies with the recruitment of teachers. If teachers themselves have poor academic records and had no qualms about copying or adopting other unfair means to cross the hurdle of examinations in their student life, they are not supposed to be fit for the job.
Then there was a need for reenergise the school committee in an effort to monitor and supervise education at the local level on a collaborative basis. Unfortunately, political interference and other extraneous considerations like, faulty and inappropriate selection of candidates especially for junior and high schools have made the task difficult and at times impossible. When one of the basic criteria for appointment is compromised, it opens up the floodgates of all kinds of irregularities. And this exactly has happened in case of education in the country. In urban centres, education is mostly now coaching-dependent. The more a guardian can spend on tutors the greater the chance of buying the so-called best education for students. When education exposes its aberration in all forms, there is no stopping those waiting in the wing to trade in the demand for short-cut success in education. Question paper leak follows as a result.  
It appears there are quarters which are gifted with magical power to have access to question papers of any public or competitive examination in this country. The education ministry on its part toyed with the idea of printing 20-30 sets of questions and deciding on one of those on the day of starting examination. What a daunting task it would be! Others have suggested downsizing the number to, say, five sets for each paper. All five sets will be sent to each examination centres and only an hour or so before commencement of the examinations the final choice will be made and known to the head of each centre. Not a bad proposal.
However, this is not going to cure the deep malaise in education. The overriding need is to restore the dignity of teachers and their institutions -each one of them. To that end one of the prerequisites is to repose trust in the integrity of teachers. So the crux of the problem lies here. Excessive commercialisation of education has robbed it of its sanctity. Now restoring the lost ground has to be started slowly but surely. Or, else education will remain imperfect and accelerate the dehumanising process.       
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The writer is Associate Editor of the FE. He can be reached at:
[email protected]