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Education in Bangladesh in Quagmire Published on April 01, 2006
Just for a quick example: what is the worth of memorizing dates and events in history? A person who memorizes dates probably soon forgets the dates and even if he does not forget them � what positive function does memorization play in our modern world apart from theatre and the like? In ancient times, memorization was the key method of preserving knowledge, but now? Now we have books that record the history and moreover TODAY, we even have computer databases that stores MUCH more information and makes information more accurately and instantly available. A student memorising the dates and events (Hafez of history) is simply wasting his brain and time. If I need accurate information, I can always go to a database or a book� the hafez is unnecessary and superfluous! Memorization is not needed in History classes. What is required is the study of events in an analytical way. A teacher and his/her class should analyse the preceding events leading to a certain event and the consequences of that certain event. The class must be allowed to see how this event is placed in the big picture � the myriad of histories of our world. Then the events and the analysis should be correlated to events in the present day. The same is true in language classes. What purpose does it serve to memorize an essay? None! The purpose of a language class is to enable a student to formulate and express own thoughts clearly and in a well organised form in the language being learned. Note also that a student cannot learn a language by learning grammar. Grammar is an analysis of the structure of a language and a child does not learn his/her parents� language by learning that structure? Memorisation is the norm for other classes as well and some will surely argue that memorisation is absolutely required for some of these classes. In the world of medicine, students are made to memorise. Doctors will say it is vital that one memorises certain data. However, even here, it is not absolutely necessary. As a person works with medicine, the person will automatically gradually remember a lot without memorising. What s/he cannot remember, s/he can always look up in a database. What a doctor should learn is the principles involved. I suspect some Muktomonas will disagree� In all the above cases it is the failure of the teacher to TEACH (explain and make the student understand the subject matter) that results in the culture of memorisation. The failure (the so called teacher) probably himself does not fully understand the principles involved and the implications of the principles (as I have seen in many cases) and so takes the simplest way out and asks students to memorise. Moreover, most of these teachers do not like to entertain questions by students since they do not posses the understanding themselves to be able to answer questions. These so called teachers know no alternative to memorising. Their teachers made them memorise and they are just continuing what they learned. Some teachers who might wish to teach otherwise are rendered helpless by the rules and requirements of the education board and the other teachers who will grade his/her students in future national exams. Students memorise because they are given no alternative by teachers and the education board. Memorization is the binding force/relationship between dim-witted professors and their dim-witted students.
Why do they cheat? When the amount of memorisation becomes overwhelming for the student (too many subjects with huge syllabi) the student naturally looks for short cuts. This calls for suggestions and also the leakage (sales) of actual question papers. This also calls for innovative methods of cheating � the same innovativeness of which the teacher and the education board could have made proper use. The cheating ranges from taking pieces of papers with notes and even writing notes on shirts, hands, legs and desktops to copying and discussing. Sometimes even invigilators help (pre-paid or post-paid). It is even rumoured LOUDLY, so loud that it is screamed, that the marks obtained by a student can be increased (manipulated) by certain people in return for monetary compensation. The situation is said to prevail in the public universities too. Students cheat because it is the only alternative (to memorising impossible amounts) left to them. It is the easier way out. The responsibility again falls on the teachers and those who set the syllabi. Thus the teacher in the present system teaches very little and the student learns very little other than cheating. So a student who stands (top 20 students) in the S.S.C. or the H.S.C. (National High School Examinations) is not necessarily the most learned/intelligent etc. of the batch but the best at memorising and/or cheating! And a student, however bright s/he may be, may even fail in such a decadent system if s/he is not good at either! Memorisation encourages cheating and discourages thinking. And this system produces unthinking generations of cheating future leaders. (I can already hear fotwas by students who did well under the current system condemning me!) In such a situation, one cannot hope for a lot. The best cheaters of a generation will come to the front and be the leaders of the society in this system. The big heads of the education department and the teachers have created an evil cycle which is detrimental to the society and the students! Their system does not bring out the brightest kids of the country to the front but the best cheaters and memorizers. How can one expect Bangladesh to progress? (The credit of any progress goes to those who despite the system have genuinely learned something and not cheated and may be, the pull from the outside progressing world.) So when a teacher of the University of Dhaka claims that the best and brightest students of the land make it to his class when he is totally aware of the system and also of the rampant cheating going on in his class, I tremble in despair! (I think it should be noted that he is a big adherent of the memorisation school, to be just to other teachers.) What is the solution? A student of the National University said that the education standards of the English medium schools and universities are much better and so the right solution is to make the medium of all education English. Is this a good solution? A Dhaka University Journalism student then disagreed and said that this solution of eliminating Bangla medium was like curing a headache by chopping off the head! I agree! The problem is not with the language of instruction! How can it be? I have studied in two different language mediums and it is not the language that is the obstacle but the system. If we change the language but keep every other element in the system the same � the only difference will be that the students will learn English better and not learn Bangla that well. There is also a fear, in making every institution English medium, that there will be greater inferiority complex sweeping the country and Bangla will be considered, by most, inferior to English. (Some English medium students already believe so.) Seeing how advanced western technology and economy is, it is natural that many get an inferiority complex. Some even feel the need to disassociate themselves from the �primitiveness� of Bangla (in all its dimensions, including clothes) and associate more with the west! And since the English speakers dominate the world, naturally English to them is the language of the superiors and thus a superior language. When they see that the students who are better at English have a greater chance at going abroad and get better paying jobs � they see this as a confirmation that the medium of instruction at educational institutions should be English. Anyway, this is sheer inferiority complex and I shall thus ignore it. If students were taught the glory that was Bangla and how it was robbed, may be, there would be less people with the inferiority complex. (Just as a bit of information, the glorious history of Bangla is not a fiction or imagination to satisfy one�s nationalist ego as a Press Institute of Bangladesh officer said but it is factual history. The text books of Bangladesh, for some mysterious reason, may avoid reference to the era when Bangla was great but the history is available for those who are interested. Those who are ignorant of this history need to stop and learn the history of Bangla before making big statements! Just because the US State Department claims that Bangladesh was always a stagnant (backwaters) nation, it does not become true!) It is not the language of instruction but the system where we should drive our attack against if we want to improve things! I will make a layman attempt since I am not an expert in educational systems and will leave the serious nitty-gritty to the learned educationist, hoping against hope, that they are not rigid memorizers and cheaters. There are 3 things that I see where change is needed. I am sure many others see them too and if you see any other needs please add them. First, the system in the universities and schools are extremely rigid. A student has little independence in choosing his/her educational path in the current rigid system. A student at the S.S.C. or H.S.C. level can choose their department: Science, Arts or Commerce but after that the choice of subjects is not very flexible. They have to take 10 different subjects all at once, and with very little choice as to what the 10 subjects will be. And the students have to study in great depth and memorise huge amounts of data in subjects in which they have little or no interest or subjects which has little or no relevance to his/her choice of field of future study. Here we can borrow the flexible structure from the Ordinary Level Examination system of the University of London. At the university level, a student at a public university in Bangladesh has no flexibility in choosing courses as in universities around the world. (Probably Shahjalal University is the only exception.). A student should be allowed to choose his own courses (subject to pre-requisites) and the number of courses to take in a SEMESTER. This means that the public universities must introduce a semester system instead of a year system to avoid the session jam that exists. Here the flexibility should be borrowed from universities in other countries. Second, the format of studying and testing should be changed from memorisation and broad/essay questions to understanding principles and intelligent questions requiring the use of the knowledge of the principles. The system should enable the student to understand the underlying principles and their implications and apply this knowledge in solving problems. Little or no stress should be given on memorisation. This should be done both at school and university levels. To change the existing format, we need to get rid of the big heads in the education department and the big headed teachers who advocate memorising from the school to the university level. These so called teachers are not teachers� they are cheaters. They cheat the students of learning. So chuck them out! (smile) This, I am sure, won�t be accomplished all that easily. At finally address the fact that there are very few well rounded books in Bangla that are suitable for study at the different levels. If we do not have great intellectuals in a certain field to write books of quality in Bangla, then we need to simply translate books � and there are good translators in Bangladesh who have enough knowledge in English
Conclusion The system and teachers force students to memorise in the existing rigid system. Students are overwhelmed and bored and look for an easy way out � they cheat. A culture of cheating is created. And thus the system produces unthinking but clever cheaters as leaders of the future. Changing the language of instruction can not change this situation. Changing the system is required. Books of quality must be made available in Bangla in all subjects. Rigidity should be relaxed in choosing courses. Syllabi and the method of teaching and testing, as said above, both in the high school and the university levels should be changed drastically. And only then can we expect to bring out the brilliance in the brilliant kids of our country.
As an afterthought, we have to
extend the opportunity of quality education to all in the villages� many of
the greatest brains of Bangla are being lost in the villages due to lack of
opportunity. If the system is changed and extended, more brilliant minds
will come forth increasing the pace of Bangladesh�s progress. The Madrasah system is given equal
status to the other systems but do not have syllabi at all tailored to the
modern world. Students from these systems will have no chance if the other
normal system is fixed. May be, only one secular system should prevail where
a course on comparative religion is taught and this course should be
optional like all other courses. |
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