Quality education for all
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Maswood Alam Khan
I still remember the Bangla sentence that I had learnt by rote in my primary school:
"Lekha Pora Korey Jey, Gari Ghora Chorey Shey" (Only those who study will be lucky to ride cars and horses). There was another Bangla sentence we during our childhood had committed to our memory: "Satatai Porom Dharma" (Honesty is the best policy).
In retrospect, as I think what impact those Bangla sentences had made on me and on my peers I feel those who were responsible to formulate primary education policy in the 1950s could do better if the sentence "Lekha Pora Korey Jey, Gari Ghora Chorey Shey" were censored out from our text book.
'Riding cars and horses' was more attractive an idea to us than 'honesty as the best policy' at a time when our mind was in embryonic form. Perhaps that was the time a seed of bourgeois mentality for materialistic gains was implanted in our mind and maybe that is the reason my peers, some of whom are now members of parliament, are so desperate to possess the most expensive cars of the best brands available in the world. We were basically educated not so much to be honest as to find means for riding cars and horses.
Last Sunday, our prime minister, while addressing the opening session of a ministerial meeting of 'South Asia Education for All Forum', said her government had initiated a process to introduce a unified curriculum for kindergartens, madrasas and primary education institutions to establish a common education standard. She said at present 91 percent children go to schools to enroll themselves at different levels according to their respective ages. She hoped 100 percent children would be enrolled by 2011 and the nation would achieve full literacy by the year 2014. The prime minister also narrated what her government is planning and implementing in education sector with a focus to strengthening the very foundation of our education. She urged all South Asian nations to work together to ensure education for all in the region.
All these inspirational words about our government's plans on education are nice to hear. We feel a glow of pride when foreigners praise us for our making great strides in primary education, especially in respect of enrollment of school-age children in primary schools and incentives in addition to free education offered to female students. Our achievement in enrolment of children into primary education is perhaps the best among all the SARC member countries in the South Asian subcontinent.
But mere enrolment of students in primary schools does not signify infusion of true education into our boys and girls. We should know what lessons our children are learning, what impact those lessons are making on their character. Are they still learning what we had learnt by rote: "Lekha Pora Korey Jey, Gari Ghora Chorey Shey"?
Are the teachers educated in the truest sense of the term? Are the trainers of the teachers educated enough to realize how to train the teachers in order to percolate the essence of our education policy all the way down to the primary schools in the remote rural areas? Are the students adopting unfair means inside exam halls where teachers are lax?
Of course, we must pay our profound gratitude to a Member of Parliament and the Prime Minister of the previous government who could do something daring and revolutionary against traditional adoption of unfair means by students in exam halls---an achievement that was beyond imagination of the previous governments before and after our liberation.
There was a time not many years ago when students found it burdensome and tiresome to stash inside their socks mini chits of solutions to copy from during their exams. Special arrangements were made for those SSC and HSC examinees so that they could more conveniently note solutions to questions hearing from broadcasts made by megaphones. Parents and well-wishers of exam candidates would read out solutions from behind the sound speakers connected to loudspeakers that used to be mounted on nearby trees and pointed towards the exam halls.
But now, students and their parents cannot dream of adopting any unfair means during any examination of any level, call it primary education or university education. It's our monumental achievement.
The list of our failures is pretty long. But, mind it, our list of achievements is not very short, either.
Palestinians have not yet gotten the taste of liberation. They have been fighting for their freedom from Israeli oppression and occupation for more than 60 years hoping to go back someday to their homes that are now within Israel. Whereas we liberated our soil pretty quickly, fighting a war that lasted less than a year.
India cannot take pride in achieving as high a rate of enrolment of students in primary education as we can. Infant mortality rate in India is much higher than that of ours. We are ahead of many countries in South Asia in exportation of some value-addable goods. Our footsteps in the world of cricket are pretty loud compared to hundreds of countries in both the developed and developing world.
What tragically pulls us back is our inability to surmount our 'leadership crises'.
We have killed our leaders who had showed us our right pathways. We now don't have many an option to choose our leaders from. We have very narrow latitude of liberty to elect our representatives. Leaders who could otherwise lead us ably are very shy compared to those who muscle in on politics on the strength of money and might.
Notwithstanding our achievement in respect of enrolment of children into primary schools we are observing that there is a stark divide between children of the same age in respect of quality education they are getting. Children attending schools in rural areas are not getting the same quality education children are getting from their schools in urban areas. In the same vein, children attending their schools equipped with morally and textually qualified teachers are better infused with social and religious values compared to schools where the teachers are not qualified in terms of morality and scholasticism.
There is a misunderstanding among us that children attending a reputed English medium school are better educated compared to those attending a Bangla medium school. In fact, there are English medium schools, which are more like a club than a place of learning. In those club-like English medium schools young students are pretty smart and fast in picking up bad habits of smoking, drinking and dating.
The South Asian subcontinent comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka poses the most serious challenges in education as this region is described by some observers as the "the poorest region", "the most illiterate region", "the least gender-sensitive region" and "the region with the highest human deprivation" where the rate of participation in schooling is extremely low and the quality of education is very poor.
'South Asia Education for All Forum' may be an excellent platform from which a comprehensive plan may be formulated to introduce a common curriculum for all the kindergarteners of all the countries in South Asia. English may be chosen as the medium of learning for such a common curriculum as all the countries of this region, being once British colonies, may find the language convenient to adapt with.
English, after all, is lingua franca.
The forum should have a goal to rid our education system of all the scourges and blights that have plagued our nations in South Asia for a long time.
With a view to keeping all the kindergarteners digitally connected there may be a common satellite TV station exclusively dedicated in catering common lessons to all our children in this region.
We hope the 'South Asia Education for All Forum' will contribute towards poverty alleviation, human rights, peace and sustainable development in this region through reforms in education policy ushering in a common environment of quality education in this region, at least in the primary level of education to start with.
(Maswood Alam Khan is a writer at large. He can be reached at e-mail: maswood@hotmail.com)
I still remember the Bangla sentence that I had learnt by rote in my primary school:
"Lekha Pora Korey Jey, Gari Ghora Chorey Shey" (Only those who study will be lucky to ride cars and horses). There was another Bangla sentence we during our childhood had committed to our memory: "Satatai Porom Dharma" (Honesty is the best policy).
In retrospect, as I think what impact those Bangla sentences had made on me and on my peers I feel those who were responsible to formulate primary education policy in the 1950s could do better if the sentence "Lekha Pora Korey Jey, Gari Ghora Chorey Shey" were censored out from our text book.
'Riding cars and horses' was more attractive an idea to us than 'honesty as the best policy' at a time when our mind was in embryonic form. Perhaps that was the time a seed of bourgeois mentality for materialistic gains was implanted in our mind and maybe that is the reason my peers, some of whom are now members of parliament, are so desperate to possess the most expensive cars of the best brands available in the world. We were basically educated not so much to be honest as to find means for riding cars and horses.
Last Sunday, our prime minister, while addressing the opening session of a ministerial meeting of 'South Asia Education for All Forum', said her government had initiated a process to introduce a unified curriculum for kindergartens, madrasas and primary education institutions to establish a common education standard. She said at present 91 percent children go to schools to enroll themselves at different levels according to their respective ages. She hoped 100 percent children would be enrolled by 2011 and the nation would achieve full literacy by the year 2014. The prime minister also narrated what her government is planning and implementing in education sector with a focus to strengthening the very foundation of our education. She urged all South Asian nations to work together to ensure education for all in the region.
All these inspirational words about our government's plans on education are nice to hear. We feel a glow of pride when foreigners praise us for our making great strides in primary education, especially in respect of enrollment of school-age children in primary schools and incentives in addition to free education offered to female students. Our achievement in enrolment of children into primary education is perhaps the best among all the SARC member countries in the South Asian subcontinent.
But mere enrolment of students in primary schools does not signify infusion of true education into our boys and girls. We should know what lessons our children are learning, what impact those lessons are making on their character. Are they still learning what we had learnt by rote: "Lekha Pora Korey Jey, Gari Ghora Chorey Shey"?
Are the teachers educated in the truest sense of the term? Are the trainers of the teachers educated enough to realize how to train the teachers in order to percolate the essence of our education policy all the way down to the primary schools in the remote rural areas? Are the students adopting unfair means inside exam halls where teachers are lax?
Of course, we must pay our profound gratitude to a Member of Parliament and the Prime Minister of the previous government who could do something daring and revolutionary against traditional adoption of unfair means by students in exam halls---an achievement that was beyond imagination of the previous governments before and after our liberation.
There was a time not many years ago when students found it burdensome and tiresome to stash inside their socks mini chits of solutions to copy from during their exams. Special arrangements were made for those SSC and HSC examinees so that they could more conveniently note solutions to questions hearing from broadcasts made by megaphones. Parents and well-wishers of exam candidates would read out solutions from behind the sound speakers connected to loudspeakers that used to be mounted on nearby trees and pointed towards the exam halls.
But now, students and their parents cannot dream of adopting any unfair means during any examination of any level, call it primary education or university education. It's our monumental achievement.
The list of our failures is pretty long. But, mind it, our list of achievements is not very short, either.
Palestinians have not yet gotten the taste of liberation. They have been fighting for their freedom from Israeli oppression and occupation for more than 60 years hoping to go back someday to their homes that are now within Israel. Whereas we liberated our soil pretty quickly, fighting a war that lasted less than a year.
India cannot take pride in achieving as high a rate of enrolment of students in primary education as we can. Infant mortality rate in India is much higher than that of ours. We are ahead of many countries in South Asia in exportation of some value-addable goods. Our footsteps in the world of cricket are pretty loud compared to hundreds of countries in both the developed and developing world.
What tragically pulls us back is our inability to surmount our 'leadership crises'.
We have killed our leaders who had showed us our right pathways. We now don't have many an option to choose our leaders from. We have very narrow latitude of liberty to elect our representatives. Leaders who could otherwise lead us ably are very shy compared to those who muscle in on politics on the strength of money and might.
Notwithstanding our achievement in respect of enrolment of children into primary schools we are observing that there is a stark divide between children of the same age in respect of quality education they are getting. Children attending schools in rural areas are not getting the same quality education children are getting from their schools in urban areas. In the same vein, children attending their schools equipped with morally and textually qualified teachers are better infused with social and religious values compared to schools where the teachers are not qualified in terms of morality and scholasticism.
There is a misunderstanding among us that children attending a reputed English medium school are better educated compared to those attending a Bangla medium school. In fact, there are English medium schools, which are more like a club than a place of learning. In those club-like English medium schools young students are pretty smart and fast in picking up bad habits of smoking, drinking and dating.
The South Asian subcontinent comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka poses the most serious challenges in education as this region is described by some observers as the "the poorest region", "the most illiterate region", "the least gender-sensitive region" and "the region with the highest human deprivation" where the rate of participation in schooling is extremely low and the quality of education is very poor.
'South Asia Education for All Forum' may be an excellent platform from which a comprehensive plan may be formulated to introduce a common curriculum for all the kindergarteners of all the countries in South Asia. English may be chosen as the medium of learning for such a common curriculum as all the countries of this region, being once British colonies, may find the language convenient to adapt with.
English, after all, is lingua franca.
The forum should have a goal to rid our education system of all the scourges and blights that have plagued our nations in South Asia for a long time.
With a view to keeping all the kindergarteners digitally connected there may be a common satellite TV station exclusively dedicated in catering common lessons to all our children in this region.
We hope the 'South Asia Education for All Forum' will contribute towards poverty alleviation, human rights, peace and sustainable development in this region through reforms in education policy ushering in a common environment of quality education in this region, at least in the primary level of education to start with.
(Maswood Alam Khan is a writer at large. He can be reached at e-mail: maswood@hotmail.com)