Education must be in tune with the time
Nighat Sultana | Tuesday, 1 July 2008
EDUCATION is no more looked at in isolation from a country's economic or developmental goals nowadays. Rather, it is recognized as the single most important factor in promoting economic growth and development through the creation of human resources. Thus, Southeast Asian countries like Japan and South Korea could achieve very remarkable progress in building economic prosperity for their people in a relatively short period of time in the last century by developing their human resources from application of appropriate educational policies.
Successive governments in Bangladesh claimed that they followed a similar path of using education as the means to attaining economic progress. But the claims have proved to be hollow against the backdrop of the prevailing education systems in the country which are far from making the best use of resources being poured into the education sector.
The some quarters are in the habit of advocating that the present education budget should be at a higher level to realise different objectives in the education sector. But this is a doubtful suggestion against the backdrop of the otherwise consensus expert opinion that it would be a great waste to pump in more and more resources into the education sector until it can be proved that the same will be actually well spent.
A complete overhaul of the education system is very necessary. The present system produces mainly literate or generalists. They are of no use for the country's developmental or economic needs. The thrust right from the primary to secondary and higher secondary stages should be on need-based education. Agricultural, vocational, scientific, technical and managerial education should form important components of syllabuses progressively throughout these stages. Sea change should take place to these ends in the field of teachers' training, recasting of syllabuses and other related matters.
Substantial investments are required to build specialised educational or training institutions to create diverse human resources in fields such as leather technology, fashion designing, marine technology, agro-products processing, information technology, seafood processing, modem farming, etc. Investments in these specialized and sector-based educational institutions can have the most effect in taking care of the supply side requirements to expedite economic growth.
Primary education is presently using up a lion's share of the education budget. While this emphasis may continue, very urgent steps need to be taken to invest much greater resources in technical education. The number of engineering universities, colleges, technical institutes, polytechnics, etc., must be rapidly increased in the coming years so that education can become life-oriented and can create adequate human resources to work as catalysts to achieve the desired economic growth.
Greater public sector investments in technical and higher education is also necessary because the majority of the pupils are in no position to afford such education at home or abroad. Only greater public sector resources going into these forms of education, even at the cost of government subsidies, should produce the highly beneficial long-term effect of creating a growing pool of technically able manpower in the country for engaging in various tasks to expand the economy.
For a country of 140 million people, Bangladesh has only a few universities of engineering and technology worth the name. But it has thousands of religious schools and colleges to produce religious persons and prayer leaders. There is nothing wrong in religious pursuits. Morality is also considered as an ingredient of development. But that morality can be taught also compulsorily to pupils of all faiths at primary and secondary schools with good effect. There is no need to proliferate endlessly exclusive religious schools to attain this goal.
Successive governments in Bangladesh claimed that they followed a similar path of using education as the means to attaining economic progress. But the claims have proved to be hollow against the backdrop of the prevailing education systems in the country which are far from making the best use of resources being poured into the education sector.
The some quarters are in the habit of advocating that the present education budget should be at a higher level to realise different objectives in the education sector. But this is a doubtful suggestion against the backdrop of the otherwise consensus expert opinion that it would be a great waste to pump in more and more resources into the education sector until it can be proved that the same will be actually well spent.
A complete overhaul of the education system is very necessary. The present system produces mainly literate or generalists. They are of no use for the country's developmental or economic needs. The thrust right from the primary to secondary and higher secondary stages should be on need-based education. Agricultural, vocational, scientific, technical and managerial education should form important components of syllabuses progressively throughout these stages. Sea change should take place to these ends in the field of teachers' training, recasting of syllabuses and other related matters.
Substantial investments are required to build specialised educational or training institutions to create diverse human resources in fields such as leather technology, fashion designing, marine technology, agro-products processing, information technology, seafood processing, modem farming, etc. Investments in these specialized and sector-based educational institutions can have the most effect in taking care of the supply side requirements to expedite economic growth.
Primary education is presently using up a lion's share of the education budget. While this emphasis may continue, very urgent steps need to be taken to invest much greater resources in technical education. The number of engineering universities, colleges, technical institutes, polytechnics, etc., must be rapidly increased in the coming years so that education can become life-oriented and can create adequate human resources to work as catalysts to achieve the desired economic growth.
Greater public sector investments in technical and higher education is also necessary because the majority of the pupils are in no position to afford such education at home or abroad. Only greater public sector resources going into these forms of education, even at the cost of government subsidies, should produce the highly beneficial long-term effect of creating a growing pool of technically able manpower in the country for engaging in various tasks to expand the economy.
For a country of 140 million people, Bangladesh has only a few universities of engineering and technology worth the name. But it has thousands of religious schools and colleges to produce religious persons and prayer leaders. There is nothing wrong in religious pursuits. Morality is also considered as an ingredient of development. But that morality can be taught also compulsorily to pupils of all faiths at primary and secondary schools with good effect. There is no need to proliferate endlessly exclusive religious schools to attain this goal.