Magic touch in the SSC results
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Masum Billah
The Secondary School Certificate (SSC) results of 2011 came out with much hope and enthusiasm of the students, guardians and teachers, but raised certain pertinent questions. The record number of pass percentage of 82.16 against 78.19 per cent last year shows a marked improvement in the second public examination results. Definitely, the trend tends to make us happy. Some 3.5 million people hit the website to know the results, while 2.4 million people collected the results using mobile phone SMS. This also bears testimony to the increasing use of technology in the field of education in our national life. The causes of better results have been attributed by the authorities to the growing consciousness of the schools, guardians and students, students' concentration on studies, absence of adopting unfair means and above all the increased pass rate in English and Mathematics. The increased pass rate in English and Mathematics raises questions as to how it has suddenly become possible to pass in these two important and difficult subjects. Students this year sat for examinations on creative questions in seven subjects. Last year, students found creative questions only in two subjects namely Bengali (first paper) and Religious Studies. It was announced that the note-books and guide books would take leave of the school corridors and the educational arena for good. But in reality they are still available. Students and teachers cannot do without those. The method of formulating creative questions is still vague to most of the teachers. It was decided that all teachers would be brought under the training programme of creative questions, but it did not happen in the real sense of the term. A very negligible number of teachers were reached. The government could have reached a vast number of teachers, if it had engaged the NGOs working for secondary education development. In this case we can mention the name of BRAC which has twenty two well equipped training centres with the capacity of accommodating three thousand participants at a time. In the creative question system each question of ten marks is divided into four parts such as knowledge level for one marks, understanding level for two marks, application level three, and higher skill four marks. There remain six questions for sixty marks and forty marks for practical and other purposes. The students of Class VI will see creative questions in all the subjects, so that they can cope with the questions fully well in the SSC examination. The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Dhaka claimed that trained teachers contributed to the increase in the pass percentage in English and Mathematics. Unbelievable, percentage in English (first paper) is 97 per cent and English (second paper) 94 per cent, while 92 per cent in Mathematics. The English textbook 'English for Today' contains one hundred nineteen lessons in twenty-two units. It is written on the basis of four language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Out of these four skills only two are touched by the teachers and students such as reading and writing skills. The rest two skills namely speaking and listening remain neglected. It means that two legs of a table are already broken which do not support the table to stand on only two legs. But we are giving certificates that students have done extremely good in English taking the test of only two skills (reading and writing). Now, if we look at their reading and writing skills, we see that many students having GPA-5 cannot even read a passage well. If you ask them to retell the passage they cannot give you any message in English. But they manage to get very high marks. How is it possible? Questions are set from only a selected number of passages such as The National Memorial, Examination Strategy, Shat Gambuj Mosque, Feroza, Dr Nafisa, Masum and Becky and Tazneen Karim. Questions available in a popular guide book appear verbatim in the board examinations question papers. Students practice those selected passages from the guide books in Class IX and Class X and it continues till the SSC examination. If any question is prepared by any creative teacher, it is frowned and criticised by the students and all concerned on the ground that the questions are not common and they have been made too difficult. So, it has become a tradition to pick questions from that particular guide book to make English popular and make more students pass in this subject. This is why 97 per cent students passed in English (first paper). It further means that we have already done a lot in English. We need not put more effort in English. In the English (second paper) forty marks are on traditional grammar in which students who do not have any idea about grammatical rules can manage to achieve pass marks. The rest 60 marks are set aside for writing. Here teachers' skill of preparing suggestion is the magic. They prepare a suggestion of three or four essays, paragraphs and completing stories. Students take preparation only on these selective items, vomit those on the examination scripts and secure GPA-5 and the teachers who prepared the 'magic suggestion' are praised and honoured as the best teachers of the school and the area. Out of these GPA-5 holders only a few student can write a paragraph on known topic in English. I my research on the students of secondary and higher secondary levels this dark picture appear before me. If you ask them to retell the same passage they have read, they cannot. If you ask them to write a question about the passage they just surrender. I am not exaggerating. This is the fact with some exceptions. There are some teachers who are more skilled in preparing suggestions. What they do is just give one model essay on the basis of which any essay can be written. Students take preparation only on that easy. These students absolutely fail to use English in their practical life. All the subjects are going under creative system except English. Sources say that authorities are reluctant to touch or change anything in English and Mathematics, as the most deciding factor of increasing pass percentage depends on English and Mathematics. In respect of Mathematics, most of the students do not develop basic ideas. Any change in figure in Mathematics perplexes the students and even some of the teachers. I gave an out of text sum to a teacher, considered to be the best in his subject, but he miserably failed to solve it. Some 92 per cent students passed in this subject. Are we just increasing the pass percentage or we are preparing the students to face the challenges of the twenty first century? Teacher's training is a significant factor for ensuring quality teaching. As the short-term trainings of different government projects and NGOs do not have any financial implications, the teachers and schools show reluctance to receive those trainings. The teachers are also not obliged to undergo training to teach a particular subject. The teacher shortage in the schools also makes the head teachers disinterested to send teachers to receive short trainings offered by government projects and NGOs. But these trainings have an elaborate follow-up system to monitor whether teachers are applying the method learnt or not. It is sometimes not liked by the teachers, but it is a must to develop a teacher professionally. The BEd course does not have any follow-up system though it has financial implications. Now the Ministry of Education must make it mandatory for teacher to receive training for a particular period of time and monitor its application in the class for all the teachers particularly, the teachers teaching compulsory subjects. If it is not ensured we will just produce students owning certificates, not any knowledge to contribute to the well being of the nation. The writer is Programme Manager of BRAC Education Programme and Vice-President of Bangladesh English Language Teachers' Association (BELTA). He can be reached at e-mail: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com
The Secondary School Certificate (SSC) results of 2011 came out with much hope and enthusiasm of the students, guardians and teachers, but raised certain pertinent questions. The record number of pass percentage of 82.16 against 78.19 per cent last year shows a marked improvement in the second public examination results. Definitely, the trend tends to make us happy. Some 3.5 million people hit the website to know the results, while 2.4 million people collected the results using mobile phone SMS. This also bears testimony to the increasing use of technology in the field of education in our national life. The causes of better results have been attributed by the authorities to the growing consciousness of the schools, guardians and students, students' concentration on studies, absence of adopting unfair means and above all the increased pass rate in English and Mathematics. The increased pass rate in English and Mathematics raises questions as to how it has suddenly become possible to pass in these two important and difficult subjects. Students this year sat for examinations on creative questions in seven subjects. Last year, students found creative questions only in two subjects namely Bengali (first paper) and Religious Studies. It was announced that the note-books and guide books would take leave of the school corridors and the educational arena for good. But in reality they are still available. Students and teachers cannot do without those. The method of formulating creative questions is still vague to most of the teachers. It was decided that all teachers would be brought under the training programme of creative questions, but it did not happen in the real sense of the term. A very negligible number of teachers were reached. The government could have reached a vast number of teachers, if it had engaged the NGOs working for secondary education development. In this case we can mention the name of BRAC which has twenty two well equipped training centres with the capacity of accommodating three thousand participants at a time. In the creative question system each question of ten marks is divided into four parts such as knowledge level for one marks, understanding level for two marks, application level three, and higher skill four marks. There remain six questions for sixty marks and forty marks for practical and other purposes. The students of Class VI will see creative questions in all the subjects, so that they can cope with the questions fully well in the SSC examination. The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Dhaka claimed that trained teachers contributed to the increase in the pass percentage in English and Mathematics. Unbelievable, percentage in English (first paper) is 97 per cent and English (second paper) 94 per cent, while 92 per cent in Mathematics. The English textbook 'English for Today' contains one hundred nineteen lessons in twenty-two units. It is written on the basis of four language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Out of these four skills only two are touched by the teachers and students such as reading and writing skills. The rest two skills namely speaking and listening remain neglected. It means that two legs of a table are already broken which do not support the table to stand on only two legs. But we are giving certificates that students have done extremely good in English taking the test of only two skills (reading and writing). Now, if we look at their reading and writing skills, we see that many students having GPA-5 cannot even read a passage well. If you ask them to retell the passage they cannot give you any message in English. But they manage to get very high marks. How is it possible? Questions are set from only a selected number of passages such as The National Memorial, Examination Strategy, Shat Gambuj Mosque, Feroza, Dr Nafisa, Masum and Becky and Tazneen Karim. Questions available in a popular guide book appear verbatim in the board examinations question papers. Students practice those selected passages from the guide books in Class IX and Class X and it continues till the SSC examination. If any question is prepared by any creative teacher, it is frowned and criticised by the students and all concerned on the ground that the questions are not common and they have been made too difficult. So, it has become a tradition to pick questions from that particular guide book to make English popular and make more students pass in this subject. This is why 97 per cent students passed in English (first paper). It further means that we have already done a lot in English. We need not put more effort in English. In the English (second paper) forty marks are on traditional grammar in which students who do not have any idea about grammatical rules can manage to achieve pass marks. The rest 60 marks are set aside for writing. Here teachers' skill of preparing suggestion is the magic. They prepare a suggestion of three or four essays, paragraphs and completing stories. Students take preparation only on these selective items, vomit those on the examination scripts and secure GPA-5 and the teachers who prepared the 'magic suggestion' are praised and honoured as the best teachers of the school and the area. Out of these GPA-5 holders only a few student can write a paragraph on known topic in English. I my research on the students of secondary and higher secondary levels this dark picture appear before me. If you ask them to retell the same passage they have read, they cannot. If you ask them to write a question about the passage they just surrender. I am not exaggerating. This is the fact with some exceptions. There are some teachers who are more skilled in preparing suggestions. What they do is just give one model essay on the basis of which any essay can be written. Students take preparation only on that easy. These students absolutely fail to use English in their practical life. All the subjects are going under creative system except English. Sources say that authorities are reluctant to touch or change anything in English and Mathematics, as the most deciding factor of increasing pass percentage depends on English and Mathematics. In respect of Mathematics, most of the students do not develop basic ideas. Any change in figure in Mathematics perplexes the students and even some of the teachers. I gave an out of text sum to a teacher, considered to be the best in his subject, but he miserably failed to solve it. Some 92 per cent students passed in this subject. Are we just increasing the pass percentage or we are preparing the students to face the challenges of the twenty first century? Teacher's training is a significant factor for ensuring quality teaching. As the short-term trainings of different government projects and NGOs do not have any financial implications, the teachers and schools show reluctance to receive those trainings. The teachers are also not obliged to undergo training to teach a particular subject. The teacher shortage in the schools also makes the head teachers disinterested to send teachers to receive short trainings offered by government projects and NGOs. But these trainings have an elaborate follow-up system to monitor whether teachers are applying the method learnt or not. It is sometimes not liked by the teachers, but it is a must to develop a teacher professionally. The BEd course does not have any follow-up system though it has financial implications. Now the Ministry of Education must make it mandatory for teacher to receive training for a particular period of time and monitor its application in the class for all the teachers particularly, the teachers teaching compulsory subjects. If it is not ensured we will just produce students owning certificates, not any knowledge to contribute to the well being of the nation. The writer is Programme Manager of BRAC Education Programme and Vice-President of Bangladesh English Language Teachers' Association (BELTA). He can be reached at e-mail: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com