A new curriculum can't fix core flaws in education
Education is a fundamental right, yet it is a luxury for many. In its 2017 report, Unesco mentioned that among those fortunate to have access to education, more than 617 million children and adolescents in the world do not have minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. Bangladesh is no exception.
We know the Bangladesh government is investing tremendous efforts to improve the education quality. As part of these efforts, the curriculum has been revised and a new one is being rolled out in classes 6 and 7. However, there are lots of debates and discussions regarding this revised curriculum, which the government is clarifying by saying that it wants to prepare smart citizens while focusing on activity-based teaching through group work, presentation and skills development.
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Objectively, if the following basic problems are not addressed, especially by creating an enabling environment in school for both teachers and students, high quality education and preparing smart citizens for a Smart Bangladesh will be difficult to achieve. The National Student Assessment (NSA) 2023 by the primary education directorate and Unicef, surveying 25,752 students of Class 3 and 28,752 students of Class 5, finds that over 60 percent of Class 3 students and 70 percent of Class 5 students don't have the proficiency in maths appropriate for their grades. Even though Bangla is the mother tongue, the survey found that 51 percent of Class 3 students and 50 percent of Class 5 students lack grade-level competence.
Long-standing problems have been aggravated due to Covid. A situation analysis on the education sector in Asia during the pandemic, prepared by Unicef and Unesco, states that the education of 37 million children in Bangladesh was disrupted due to school closures and worrying gaps in basic literacy and numeracy skills exacerbated, which existed before the pandemic began and is continuing now.
Students were auto-promoted to higher classes during the Covid shutdown. Even though the books are self explanatory and teachers are trained, there is no uniformity in implementation. These students did not study during Covid, and having no exam system now in Class 6 and 7 has made them flippant about learning. Guardians are also not able to assess the knowledge of their children, as there are no exam copies to see. These gaps will carry over to the upper classes, as schools are more focused on finishing the syllabus, not their learning.
The ultimate goal of education is to help an individual contribute to society. It is the process through which an individual obtains basic knowledge and learns social norms, and how to differentiate between right from wrong. However, children learn all these not only from formal education, but also informally from their homes, society, electronic or print media, and elders. Research has revealed that children and adolescents are likely to follow or copy what they see and hear, a kind of contagion described as "copycat" or "imitator" effect. Continuing exposure to social ills can lead to negative behaviours in some children. All these have adverse effects and consequences for their future.
It is now mandatory to focus on sustainable solutions and not work in haste—not to revise the curriculum for the sake of revision or teach for the sake of teaching. We have to fill in the gaps created by Covid-19 first. We must ensure that children go to the classrooms, assess the extent of their learning loss, provide them with the relevant support to recover what they have missed, and give scope to interact with their teachers directly and share their opinion. Additionally, we must consult with students, parents and teachers of Classes 6 and 7 on the revised curriculum and take their opinions into account.
Nelson Mandela once said that education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. If that is so, let's use this weapon together to accentuate the sustainable solutions to change ourselves and behave accordingly, to change our society and the world for the better.
Romina Dewan is executive director of Livelihood Education And Development Services (LEADS) Foundation.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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