Mistakes reign

"Why did the intellectuals kill?"

Confused! Well, this is one of the multiple choice questions fifth graders had to answer in their Bangladesh and Global Studies English-version examination yesterday.

However, the above mentioned question was not the only one that perplexed students across the country during their primary terminal exams.

Three sets of question papers that The Daily Star went through were riddled with mistakes in all sections -- MCQs and questions for short and elaborate answers.

For instance, it is certainly puzzling to think what answers the students had come up with to the question, “What is happen to disobey law?”

And how did they answer the main cause of “breaking the bank of rivers”?

The unfortunate pupils were probably confused as to whether they were to answer why the authority destroys the rivers' banks or why the erosion of the bank of a river occurs.

And then arrived questions such as “What is freedom fight?”, “What does the right to move freely include?” and “Why did Sonargaon make the capital of ancient Bengal?”

The answers might have been funnier than the questions.

Even in the multiple-choice question category, it seemed like the examiners were not only testing the students on how much they knew but also on their 'critical thinking'.

For example, four options given for the question "What would happen if not the Mujibnagar govt was formed?", were: war would happen longer, war wouldn't conduct properly, help wouldn't get from India, and it would not be possible to train of freedom fighter.

It seems the authority expected fifth graders, around the age of 11, to bring out sensible meanings of the questions and then answer them.

Apart from grammatical errors, teachers and guardians said, options in some MCQ questions were confusing.

To the result of the 'divide and rule' policy of the British, students were supposed to select one of the four options -- racial discrimination, cultural discrimination, social discrimination and financial discrimination. All the answers could be correct.

Guardians said examinations are conducted to assess children's competency and knowledge but how far the assessment would be correct if based on the questions asked.

"It seemed the examiners just used Google translate to set the questions in English," said a mother, wishing not to be named.

The issue triggered a firestorm on social media.

One of the users, a teacher working at an English medium school, said, "The kind of English written in the question paper itself shows the deplorable state of education. Education is no longer in the hands of the educated. I am appalled."

Yesterday's was a blatant example for reinforcing the educationist's concerns over the quality of education.

"This is really embarrassing… and disturbing," said Prof Serajul Islam Choudhury, a renowned academic, author, and columnist.

The English version was introduced as a substitute for English-medium education without giving attention to its quality. If the level of knowledge of the examiners is such a disgrace, then one would wonder what was taught in classes and what the children had learnt, he said.

The number of students taking the terminal exam has increased over the years; they pass with good marks but “it is sad that the quality of education is declining,” Serajul Islam added.

"We are making them confused instead of helping them learn properly. No one has this right to subject children to this”, said noted educationist Rasheda K Choudhury.

Such examinations should be stopped as they create confusion in the minds of children, said Rasheda, also the executive director of Campaign for Popular Education.

Contacted, Md Shah Alam, director general of National Academy for Primary Education (Nape), the organisation that set the question paper, was surprised when this newspaper informed him about the goofs.

"Really?" was his first reaction.

He said there might be some typos or mistakes made while printing the questions at BG Press.

When given some examples of the mistakes, he said class-I officers set the questions and wondered how such mistakes were being made.

"I have to check whether there is any mistake in the manuscripts which we gave to the BG Press for printing," the DG said.