Some recent updates about primary to higher education

An astonishing piece of news published in a Bangla daily that has just stunned me when the whole vicinity of education is concerned with the sloping quality of education. All parts of the country -from northern to southern and hill tracts to the plain western part -witness the proxy primary teachers who are either secondary level or college going students. These proxy teachers receive Tk 1500 to 2000 per month from the regular primary school teachers who draw more than ten thousand taka salary per month and once or twice a month they go to school just to put their signature for the whole  month. Now question arises, how they commit this corrupt practice under the nose of head teacher, upazila education officer and district education officer. Do they do it in connivance with these officials? Or the upazila or district education officers don't know it or it is happening due to their poor and weak mentoring process. For whatever reasons it takes place, none of them can avoid the responsibility. Primary education forms the first base of future of education and career path of a learner's life. They need very solid, sophisticated and children friendly teaching conducted by the dedicated and properly trained teachers. But the children of these institutions find the proxy teachers instead who definitely offer very poor quality teaching.  They do not find the scope to develop interaction between them and their teachers who remain totally absent from the schools and from the mind of the children.
The ministry of education has decided to increase the pass marks from 33 to 40 with a view to keeping pace with the standard of passing marks with neighbouring countries such as Sri Lanka and many states of India. The education secretary has already talked to the chairpersons of all education boards in this regard who gave their positive consent which we salute as the increasing pass rate does not necessarily prove the increasing trend of the quality of education. Moreover, education secretary thinks it will keep the students glued to reading table more than the present time. It will be a pragmatic initiative indeed.
Another positive decision is going to be implemented. The ministry has decided to introduce test for spoken English and Arabic for ten marks for students of secondary schools. After passing the HSC or even graduation level our graduates cannot express themselves comfortably in English which is a prime objective of teaching English as a compulsory subject. It will help them obtain better jobs at home and aboard. But their lagging behind in this field always brings poor results. Students learn English as a compulsory subject, but actually they do not know why they are reading it. They just pass in the examination as the whole education system has been pushed to the door of examination orientated teaching learning situation seriously ignoring  gaining skills and knowledge. Hence, many of our students cannot use English in their practical  life at all. In the same way many students passing out of madrashas also cannot speak Arabic. They could have developed a big job market in the Middle East if they could have spoken Arabic well. Very appreciable and practical step indeed if it really can be implemented! Teachers teaching English also does not attach any importance to speaking skills and many of them also are not good speakers. This decision of the ministry will compel them to teach English and Arabic quite in modern ways where spoken language will get much importance and priority. Teachers training run by government and non-government organisations will also get importance which is neglected at present by the teachers. These training programmes offer them golden scope to develop their oral fluency in English. The same should be introduced for madrasa teachers.
Let us have a glimpse of college education. In thirteen government colleges in the city of Dhaka alone there are about six hundred attached teachers. In Dhaka College alone there are more than 16 extra teachers in each department. On the other hand, the classes of the government colleges in rural areas are being hampered due to the lack of teachers. Teachers remain in Dhaka city utilising party authority, by means of corrupt practice, showing and raising false issues etc. it is undoubtedly a huge loss of human resources in one hand and on the other, non-uniformed and uneven distribution of government college teachers according to college locations and students density has been done. It raises the question of teachers' morality and what they teach when they themselves are engaged in corrupt practice. Promoting the teachers to the next higher position is a desired and usual step and accordingly 367 associate professors  have been promoted to the position of professor, the highest level in  teaching position. Well. But what criteria have been followed to give them  promotion? Do they have any publication in the local or international journal?  Have their performance in the classroom and students' satisfaction level  been considered ? Until and unless these issues will be considered to get promotion, how can we expect quality education from them?  Quality education comes from quality teachers. Again, it has been released by DSHE that in 306 government colleges of the country there are 15 thousand 112 posts. Out of them three thousand remain vacant and most of them are in the mofasshal colleges. What an imbalance situation lying in this field!
Another praiseworthy step of the ministry of education has been printed in some dailies.  Teacher recruitment in the non-government educational institutions will be made from the 'Teachers' Pool' who have qualified in the Non-Government Teachers' Registration and Certification  (NTRC) test. The present practice gives school management committee scope to appoint any one of the pool teachers whom they like. But the proposal in the offing says the NTRC qualified teachers will apply and on the basis of their viva results the top scores will be appointed as teachers. The SMC will just give the appointment letter after the final selection is made. It clearly indicates the weakening power of their appointing authorities which made broad scope for them to adopt corrupt practices. Due to this corrupt practice, deserving candidates could not be recruited as teachers inviting a serious doom in the field of teaching. Upazila education officers will make a list of vacant posts of their  upazilas in  December. This list will be sent by them to the DEOs who will send it to the Education Ministry, DSHE and NTRCA. NTRCA will float advertisement and conduct selection test to make a list of the teachers against each district. Educational institutions concerned will employ the teachers from the list when they apply and complete the other required procedure. To bring qualitative change in the teaching learning situation  and narrowing corruption lying in the arena of teaching  these steps have been thought of by the ministry of education. We hope to see their full and successful implementation without any delay as we have already done quite a big sore in this field. The sooner it is done, the better.

The writer is Programme Manager at BRAC Education Programme and Vice-president of Bangladesh English Language Teachers Association (BELTA),
email: [email protected]