Take-outs from teachers\\\' conference at Cox\\\'s Bazar

The Prime Minister office's Access to Information (A2I) project and the British Council with the help of the education ministry and the ministry for primary and mass education organised a three-day teachers'  conference between May 5 and 7 2014 in Cox's Bazar with the theme "Enlightened teachers for the 21st century,"  the first of its kind in Bangladesh. Of course, a teachers' conference was held in 2007 which was jointly organised by BRAC and TQI and it mainly focused on  Master Trainers of BRAC and TQI ( Teaching Quality Improvement Project). The teachers who conduct classes using multi-media and develop materials using information technology have gathered together nationally for the first time. Thanks to the organisers for arranging  it at  a suitable  time when the buzzing of ICT has been heard all around. Its objective was to encourage teachers to provide multi- media teaching techniques, ensuring utilisation of information technology for teaching, exchanging ideas, improving professional standards and contributing better to the nation.  One hundred teachers from all over the country who have special contribution in providing multi-media education, digital content in their classrooms and have excellent contribution as teachers participated in the conference. Of them, 42 were rewarded as best teachers. Nazrul Islam Khan, secretary, information communication technology and national project director A2I gave special encouragement to the teachers and students through his presence.
The conference accommodated three different seminars on 'Effective teaching-learning process: Local and Global perspective'; 'Teachers professional development' and '21st century teachers: skills and challenges'. Teachers presented the papers and joined as panellists. I cannot but appreciate this effort as the teachers of secondary level hardly have such kind of opportunities. This conference opened the avenue for the teachers to present papers and join as panellists.  
We know that our education system has been plagued by many ills. Through this conference once again some ills have been identified and possible solutions have been discussed. The participants opined that learning system in the twenty-first century should be student-centred and teachers need to teach using different methods to ensure students' better understanding of materials. Still a significant number of teachers in the country have become habituated with traditional teaching-learning approaches and are unwilling to use technology in imparting lessons.  Around 30,000 teachers received training for preparing digital content of some of the textbooks. Afterwards the teachers put the content on teachers' web portal. It is a noble initiative taken by A2I project. Out of the 30,000 teachers, 42 were honoured for preparing the best digital contents for the multimedia classrooms. Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid handed over crest and certificate to each teacher. The participating teachers and students  emphasized proper lesson planning, healthy student-teacher relations, interesting presentation of topics by the teachers in classrooms, improving group-based lesson in place of classrooms based on lecture-and-memorisation. They also called for the need of information technology-based and techno-friendly education, use of practical examples in classrooms. Two students, Tasnim Nawer of Cox's Bazar Government Girls' School and Sayeed Abdullah of Cox's Bazar Government High School at the seminar said that students got bored with lessons based on lecture. They demanded information technology-based and techno-friendly education, friendly attitude toward students and use of practical examples in the classrooms. At the seminar on teaching-learning process, Mymensingh Government Teacher's Training College associate professor Mujibur Rahman said that information and communication technology should be used in classrooms to make the presentation of topics interesting to the students. Tasnifa Khanman of Viqarunnessa School and College of Dhaka emphasized teaching in the classroom reading the minds of the students and setting examples relevant to the age of the students to become a popular teacher. She also said. "Teachers should know primary information about students and make their best preparation before holding a class,"  Presenting the keynote paper on teaching and learning process, Jaidip Dey, a teacher of Teachers' Training College in Chittagong, said, "We have to introduce a learning system blended with modern pedagogy and technology".
It has been heard and discussed many times that the existing teaching system in the country is not joyful and does not foster creative thinking among students as teachers mostly focus on rote learning. The issue received importance once again in this conference.  
Emphasizing the need for redesigning the learning tools, the participating teachers said the information communication technology should replace the age-old teaching method of delivering lectures in classrooms.  Teachers should be more innovative in preparing classroom lessons, should present the lessons more interestingly and engage students more in classroom interaction. In order to do that only manual teaching cannot hold students' attention always. Teachers need to take the help of technology to bring novelty in the classroom. It goes in line with the digitalization process of the country. It is receiving probably the highest priority at present from the government. The government had so far introduced multimedia classrooms in  23,000 schools. Inaugurating the conference, Primary and Mass Education Minister Mostafizur Rahman said the use of technology should be increased in the education sector to keep pace with the global competitors. Nurul Islam Nahid, the minister for education, said that the government would set up multimedia classrooms at all educational institutes. Let us hope that all the educational institutions will use technology to make our teaching -learning situation more interactive, enjoyable and global standard to prepare our future citizens for the 21st century.
The writer is Programme Manager at BRAC Education Programme and Vice-President of Bangladesh English Language Teachers’ Association
(BELTA), email: [email protected]