Promoting science education in schools

In 1991 SSC examination, 44 percent students came from science group. It came down to 30 percent in 2005. In 2005 HSC examination, 23 percent appeared from science group, 49 percent from humanities group and 27 percent students from business education. In 2013 SSC exam, 2,26,337 students came from science group, 3,92,109 from humanities group and 3,68,971 from commerce group. In 2013 HSC exam under Jessore Board, 12,839 students appeared from science group, 68,891 students from humanities group and 28,264 students from business studies.     
The above figures collected from different newspaper reports give us a picture of decline of interest among our young generation about science education. In July 2008, The Daily Star and Bangladesh Academy of Sciences organised a roundtable entitled 'State of Science Education in Bangladesh'. The problems in science education identified in that roundtable still hold. These are: weak curriculum and textbooks, weak teaching and assessment methods, lack of properly trained teachers and laboratory facilities, poor salary of the teachers and students' sliding interest. These were pointed out to be some of the main reasons for qualitative and quantitative decline of science education.
Besides these, there is another very important one reason. It is important to have role models for young learners to look up to. But how much our young students are familiar with the names of Jagadishchandra, Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, Satyen Bose, Meghnad Saha and other Bangali scientists like them? Very little. And those who should be blamed for this are the policy makers and textbook authorities in the country. This lack of knowledge about our role models has deprived us of our legitimate pride and made us intellectually poor and taken away the ladder of dream from the minds of our youths. At most, our science students can dream of nothing better than becoming doctors or engineers, salespersons of western businesses.
None of these Bangali scientists were small fries in the big ocean of science; they were and are giants in that world. They are all known as Indian scientists to the world because people of Bangladesh could not put their legitimate claim on them as their own. It is true that they grew up in Calcutta, but it is because it was the capital of the British India. Until and unless people of Bangladesh claim them and other great Bangalis as their own they would not be known as Bangalis but Indians. Being an independent country Bangladesh has this advantage; West Bangla has not.
P C Ray was born in the village of Raruli-Katipara in Khulna. Jagadishchandra was born in Mymensingh, studied in Faridpur and his parental home is in today's Munshiganj. Satyen Bose taught at Dhaka University for 24 years and here was born his Max Planck's Law and Light Quantum Hypothesis that Albert Einstein translated into German and had it published. Meghnad Saha was born in Dhaka, was nominated for the Nobel Prize four times but was denied the recognition.  
Jagadishchandra and his student Satyen Bose struggled throughout their lives in disseminating and popularizing science knowledge in the Bangla language. Not for without any reason, Rabindranath Tagore dedicated his science book 'Biswa Parichay' to Satyen Bose and wrote poems addressing Jagadish. The Nobel Laureate poet and Jagadishchandra were close friends throughout their lives. Jagadish was not a mere scientist. He was a warrior in the colonial world, a noble soul, a philosopher and a literateur. Jagadish Chandra is the father of Bangla science fiction. His literary work Abyakto  'is still regarded by literary critics as a masterly exposition of the beauty of natural phenomena. In recognition of his literary works, he was made the president of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad.' (A versatile genius, Frontline, Nov. 20 - Dec 03, 2004) Bangladesh was always in his mind. As Madhusudan could never get rid of the pull of the river Kopotakkho, he as well could never forget his childhood days in Bangladesh. His lecture at Bikrampur Conference in 1915 tells all this.
These great Bangali minds were born and worked in the British colonial period. Bangladesh's independence should have produced more minds like them; instead, state of science education here turned dismal. In spite of this, the independent Bangladesh has also some great science thinkers like Qudrat-e-Khuda, Jamal Nazrul Islam and others of whom we feel proud. Students' interest about science will not rise just through lamenting about it. All the problems in science education must be addressed. In addition, write-ups by Bangali scientists as well as articles and stories about them should be included in our school textbooks in order to boost interest in science education among our learners.
The writer writes on theatre,
education and socio-political issues, email:[email protected]