Necessity of effective primary schools

Schools at the primary level build the foundation of students' education. Teaching the classic "three Rs" of education--reading, writing and arithmetic--prepares children for secondary school and beyond. Without a mastery of these fundamentals, students are not able to prepare themselves for the next stage of education. Therefore, primary schools have a pivotal role in developing a solid foundation of primary education among students. The purposes of primary schools are to develop all children physically, intellectually, morally, emotionally, socially and aesthetically and children definitely should have development in these areas in early stages in their life to become good human beings. And primary schools are the only places of rearing and nourishing children to achieve purposes of primary school as schools are the first formal institution of children outside family environment. But parents are facing problems now-a-days in selecting primary schools to get their offspring admitted due to lack of sufficient number of reputed good schools at district and upazila level.
The quality of primary schools has always been of interest to the discerning parents. Parents often talk to others about the merits of primary schools, particularly at those crucial times when their offspring are about to start formal education. Parents firmly believe that primary schools are the only place of developing mastery of fundamentals of education among their children. So they have a tendency to select reputed primary schools for their children, and parents always wrongly differentiate between a good school and a bad school by comparing only examination results although there are so many factors for judging the quality of a school. Due to brilliant academic results in the examinations parents have the tendency to get their kids admitted to the limited number of reputed primary schools at district- or upazila headquarters. As a result reputed schools are compelled to admit a huge number of students beyond their capacity. Students of these schools are coming from different school catchments areas and most of them are from socially advantaged families. Since parents have the intention to get admission of their offspring to these good schools by any means, the schools are overloaded by students and therefore quality of teaching-learning activities falls.
On the other hand a huge number of students are dropped out of schools during the five-year cycle of primary education due to absence of school attractiveness. There are so many reasons responsible for alarming rate of dropout like poverty, malnutrition, absence of quality teaching-learning process in the classroom and lack of suitable learning environment at home. But the main reason behind the dropout is lack of attractions. In Bangladesh most of the primary school students come to school with a gloomy face but depart school with a smiling face due to lack of enjoyable and child-friendly learning environment at schools.
Major concerns cited above that primary education sector is facing now-a- days can be addressed successfully if it becomes possible to make each and every primary school an effective one. Integrated efforts by teachers, parents and other stakeholders concerned with primary schools are necessary for making primary schools effective in order to bring qualitative positive changes in primary education. Effective primary schools need to ensure following elements to restore parents' confidence of random selection of schools for their offspring's admission as well as inspire their kids to complete five years cycle of primary education.
Child friendly school environment
Parents always mean effectiveness of a primary school as effectiveness of its environment as well as effectiveness in its academic results. But before selecting a primary school parents consider whether the environment of the school is child-friendly or not. To make the environment child-friendly, effective primary schools need to provide the following facilities:
* Well planned classrooms so that sufficient natural light and air easily enter the classrooms and sound from one classroom to others cannot be heard
* Separate hygienic latrines for boys and girls and source of safe and pure drinking water
* Good communication facilities for students from different parts of catchments area
* Adequate desks and benches for smooth sitting arrangement
* Plain playground suitable for sports
* Boundary walls so that animals and outsiders cannot enter school
* Organised classrooms where chalkboard or whiteboard is placed in a position so that writings on it can be easily visible to the students, and opportunity of hanging students' writings, drawings and other works
* Logistic supports for keeping school premises and classrooms neat and clean with the help of teachers, student council and school brigade together
* Available materials and instruments for sports and cultural activities both for boys and girls and special need students
* Provision of relaxed school timetable considering season climate and socio-economical conditions of parents and school catchments areas
Academic leadership by head teacher:
It is commonly said that as is the head teacher, so is the school. Therefore the overall success of a primary school mainly depends on the leadership qualities of a head teacher. So a head teacher of an effective primary school needs to:
* Act as an academic leader of a team with high vision
* Work intensively with the academic and infrastructural development process of the school through involving stakeholders
* Maintain an excellent rapport with students, teachers, parents and stakeholders
* Monitor students' and teachers' performance regularly as an academic supervisor and provide timely feedback
* Have a keen interest in organising co-curricular activities regularly to attract students to come to school and actively participate in all types of school activities
* Maintain relationship with teachers like a friend
Quality teaching and learning
With a view to ensuring tangible and quality learning for all the students, teachers need to take following steps in the teaching-learning process of an effective primary school.
* Come to school and attend classes timely according to class routine
* Hold classes by taking preparation of lessons at home with identifying learning outcomes and making plan for the lesson
* Begin class with materials like pictures, chartsetc related to lessons to make the lessons attractive to students
* Incorporate individual work, pair work, group work and other interactive activities in teaching process to encourage active participation by learners
* Relate lesson content to students' feelings and experience in order to involve students personally in learning
* Encourage students to participate actively in the lessons by using question and answer method
* Encourage students to think by asking open-ended and thought-provoking questions and help students to solve problems
* Use different teaching styles and methods and adjust teaching method when needed by monitoring students' response
* Monitor students' classwork and progress throughout the lesson and provide timely feedback
* Assign students independent homework relevant to lessons
* Identify weaker students in the lessons and take remedial measures for their learning
* Display students' work that is reflective of their progress
* Maintain an excellent rapport with students
* Help students to use their learning in real life situation
* End the lesson with a review and assessing whether students' learning is achieved or not.

The writer is working for primary education in Bangladesh, email: auparbayazidkhan@gmail.com