Salvaging Our Schools

Draft education policy
Barely puts guidebook in legacy.
Another bout of Corona virus
Risks prolonging closure and syllabus.

One of the sectors that are badly affected by Corona virus is the education sector. It has been a year all the educational institutions shut their doors amid spread of this deadly virus that is still wreaking its havoc.

Ministry of Education announced that universities would resume activity from May 24 after clashes with university students and residents in two districts had made news item. Stranded residential students had long been staying in surrounding areas of universities in several districts, hoping to continue their part time jobs or tuition and to prepare for future job exams or other academic exams as resources are not available in remote villages. But Corona virus cramped their opportunities, making it difficult to pay their rents of the houses they coshared in the surrounding areas. In addition, the neighboring residential areas are source of extortion for politically backed student leaders. Often clashes of interest among different branches of political parties disturb normal activity in a neighborhood. Clash between student and transport workers in Borishal ended up students vacating their apartments in the adjacent residential areas. Clash between villagers and students over a cricket match led the students stormed into their dormitories amid pandemic closure. In this backdrop, government decided to announce the date of reopening.

But it made it clear that all residential students and teachers have to get vaccinated first.

The schools, however, remain closed. Government has not decided yet anything. In a letter to British Council, government urged to cancel all the exams for 'O'-level and 'A'-level, following the actions of other countries.

As the number of Corona virus victims is on the rise, there is little signs of reopening of schools. There are countries, however, which imposed partial or no closure on schools. Belarus did not shut down its schools during the pandemic, according to UNESCO estimates. Iceland, Switzerland and France followed partial closures of 6.1 weeks, 6.4 weeks and 23.6 weeks respectively. Amid the UK variant, which is more contagious among young and under-19 population, French health experts, however, call into question government's decision to keep the schools open (Source: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210317-a-french-exception-pride-and-regret-over-france-s-open-schools-amid-pandemic ).

Long before the pandemic, our school system has become subject of debate surrounding on extra-hours of industrial scale learning activities outside school and flooding of unchecked solution or guidebooks.

In 2011, government started preparing an education act to address these issues in a bid to improve school learning and to give relief to families from incurring huge costs. Government finalized it, awaiting cabinet's approval. But it surfaced fresh criticism as it may incorporate provision of guidebook and industrial-scale private lesson provider, expurgated in previous draft. In addition, the draft act may stipulate that daily newspapers will be barred from publishing educational materials prepared by seasoned teachers (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, March 19,2021). These educational contents on the dailies helped a lot students in comprehending difficult topics. In Bangladesh, number of libraries is dwindling away. Tribal nature of Bangladesh politics hinders growth of libraries. So newspapers educational contents to some extent fill the absence of supplementary learning materials.

I have not seen the draft myself so I refrain from commenting on the act. what constitutes supplementary reading is not explained at great length. It is construed across media as guidebooks, aka " noteboi" , written by some teachers or graduates and published by some publishers in a bid to let the students quickly grasp the subject matter. But it ended up flooding the market with low quality guidebooks and not letting students read the main textbooks.

If government really wants to augment in-school learning activities , then it should equip the schools with libraries stacked with books published at home and abroad. At the same time, it should allocate fund at community and neighborhood level to set up libraries aiming school goers. To help supplementary reading, government should encourage publishers to publish books that are easy to understand. If a typical student has troubles to decipher the meaning of textbook content, then he or she will switch to guidebook or go to coaching center. A well written and well researched learning book helps a student grasping the matter easily. Writing textbook or learning book is a different vocation. Government can bring educational content writer, editor and publishers from abroad to train local content writer, editor and publishers to give the industry a firm footing. It , in the end, will steer towards publishing of quality content.

I am for private lesson provider, but against industrial-scale private lesson provider at school level. There may be mock up exam centers that adapt and train students to go through the mechanical process of exams, but there should not be coaching centers with various branches at school level. Individual graduate or school teachers may provide lesson to few students. I do not see any wrong in it.

We need to review our school syllabus too. Giving in to the demand of a dogmatic group, government took off contents written by authors of different faith groups from school textbooks. Even pythons are disappeared from Bengali alphabet book (" Shore-O", first Bengali alphabet, for "Ajagor" or python is no no longer there on the new alphabet book). Our education policy makers need to understand that a Bengali kid's understanding of good and evil and right and wrong takes shape through reading fairy tales, legends and folklore stories. Most of them are written by writers of different faith groups.

In European schools, students learn Greek and Latin as European languages have roots in Greek and Latin. So Europeans are good at acquiring other European languages besides their own mother tongue. By the same token, many languages in Indian subcontinent have roots in Sanskrit. Bengali alphabets are based on Brahmi script whereas Hindi languages are based on Devnagari script. Inculcating students elementary Sanskrit at schools may adept our students in Bengali. It will later improve their comprehension in Bengali. Buddhist literature also helped a lot in molding today's Bengali language. Unfortunately, Pali and Sanskrit are confined into august companies of other subjects in few universities. I think government should take initiative to publish books like "Sanskrit for Kids" or "Elementary Sanskrit" at school level. It will help Bangladeshis later to acquire other Indian languages like Hindi, Odiya, Asamese and Nepali.

Bengali identity is not confined into religious aspect. Attempt to find out religious aspect in it only undermines our nation's identity. And people aware of their roots never engage in shameful conducts as we are witnessing now in university adjacent areas and at the campus.

I think without much ado school should be reopened. Small batches, several sessions and temporary teachers are means to resume school activities. Government earlier had plan,later scuttled,to take classes for class IX and class X. It could revive that plan. Developed nations could afford full closures of schools. Poor nations like us hardly tread along that path. If that is not possible, then we should go for partial closure amid another bout of this deadly virus.

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(25 décembre --- 01 janvier)

Selon un reportage, la mesure sanitaire a grippé les établissements scolaires encore une fois. La premier ministre a fait ça assez clair que si la situation continue devenir pire le gouvernement n'a pas envie d'ouvrir les écoles. L'examen terminal d' école aura lieu à mi-juin.L'examen terminal de lycée pourra se dérouler à mi-août.

Selon un reportage, la police indienne de l'Assam a découvert un tunnel clandestin relie une forêt de l'Assam et la frontière de Bangladesh. Le tunnel, une longueur de 200 mètre, a été utilisé pour passer contrebande et gens. En enquêtant une abdication, la police indienne a découvert le tunnel.

Selon un reportage, élection municipale a eu lieu dans 24 municipalités. Le parti en exercice a remporté 18 et le parti de l'opposition a remporté 2 municipalités. Electronic Voting Machine(EVM) a été utilisé. Le parti de l'opposition a accusé le gouvernement de fraude électorale dans plusieurs municipalités. Dans quelques bureaux de vote, représentants de candidat indépendant de candidat de l'opposition ont été expulsés.

Future Of Learning

At one fell swoop govt cancelled school exam.
Many fear students will be subject to harm.
Learn-apply-evaluate will be future of learning.
Ability to apply should reflect in its meaning.

In one of the rarest moves in country's history, Bangladesh decided not to take the year-end exams in the secondary and primary schools. It has been taken in a bid to contain the spread of COVID-19. The decision has met mixed reactions across the society. More or less 238,00,000 students are pursuing education at primary and secondary schools in Bangladesh. (Source: Wikipedia)

This promotion without exam, aka autopromotion, starts debate about evaluation of learning that was severely hampered by COVID-19. Ministry of Education came up with an idea that revolves around assignment based on a 30-day syllabus on relevant subjects. The assignment will be sent to the parents and the student will prepare it. Based on the assignment, his or her learning will be measured. This particular decision has put the autopromoted students in somewhat awkward position compared to students who were promoted through exams in past years.

Government had earlier cancelled nation wide exams at elementary, secondary and post-secondary level showing Corona virus as cause. There has however been policy discrimination. For instance, government did not bar holding "O" level exams and continuing activities of religious seminaries. Students of these streams of education are no less susceptible to COVID-19. Perhaps the sheer size of the secondary school students made the government nervous as the effective vaccine for COVID-19 is still not on the surface.

Exam is considered a measure of progress made by a student in this part of the world. This particular decision put the auto promoted students in somewhat awkward position compared to other students whose promotion to next class was based on exams in previous years.

Government should take cue from"O" level education system. Secondary school students who will be autopromoted will be given chances to sit for exam as soon as COVID-19 situation improves. If the exam score is higher than the assignment score than it will be kept, or else the assignment score will be retained.

Since it is not known when the COVID-19 will be fully defeated, indefinite closure of schools is untenable. Small batches of classes in several shifts could be seen as an alternative. But to implement it, teachers have to be duly compensated ( for extra classes) and new temporary teachers need to be recruited (to reduce strain on existing teachers).

One prerequisite should be to allocate part of the school resources available for COVID-19 treatment. And senior students should be trained to treat Corona virus patients. This step will reduce pressure on hospitals if situation turns worst.

One of the great things to notice is that COVID-19 led the government to take resort to audiovisual media in a bid to broadcast educational content.Private television stations also stepped forward to take part in this initiative. At the same time, government should keep in mind that a good number of households do not have access to television and resources to buy digital gadgets. Government should address this problem by providing subsidized television sets, other digital gadgets and equipping the class rooms in villages in a bid to bridge the digital gap.

There will be sea of changes in future learning. COVID-19 starts the process in that end. In the post pandemic world the changes will be more conspicuous. I think we will be back to old days when one teacher groomed one or small batches of students surrounded by stocks of learning tools. Like those old days, certified teachers will teach small batches of students depending heavily on repository of digital learning tools and library. Apprentice kind of learning will be prevalent. A kind of learn-apply-evaluate like sequence will be widely followed.

Two examples are presented to illustrate the point. First one from my elementary school days. Back then government primary schools used to have huge empty land behind school premises. Vegetables were grown on the land by students. In one winter noon, teachers and students picnicked at the school premise and consumed those vegetables in the lunch. Students knew how to prepare the land, what it takes to grow vegetables, how to take care of the plants, different stages of plants and benefits of eating vegetables. Students learned it, applied it and experienced (evaluated) their outcome. Based on past experiences, they might grow vegetables more efficiently.

Second one from a movie called "The Matrix". In that movie, the protagonist has to learn marshal art to deal with an evil program in the cyber world. He has no idea of marshal art. His mentors pass a program that includes all the steps of marshal art into his brain. He trains himself in the virtual world to get along well with the new knowledge and faces the formidable foe with greater ease.

I am not expecting such radical change in the process of learning in the future. But virtual learning environment will help students learning and perfecting new knowledge in short span of time. Complex surgery will be much more easier as such simulation will be created as many times as possible in virtual reality. Simulation based learning will be child's play. Simulation can teach us horror of neglecting climate change and dodging taxes in the class room.We do not have to wait for a Hollywood blockbuster to underscore importance of tiny things in our lives.

We should measure the progress in learning by a pupil's ability to apply it. If exam reflects it, then there is no problem with exam. But exam should not be the only mean to gauge it. Many students pass the English exam in their year-end exam or school certificate exam. It is assumed that they are capable of making basic conversation in English with their workable knowledge in English. Is it really the case? Ability to apply the acquired knowledge should be the yardstick to measure progress in learning.

Two Good Things About Budget 2020

I have found two  positive things about the budget for 2020: government plans to allocate Tk 500 million to scientific research and to allow foreign teachers in Education sector. Sources of both information are press reports. I have not had the chance to look at the budget documents where these propositions are broached. Ministry of Finance website posted  some documents , which are snippets of statistical information revealing where the money will stem from and where it will be spent.

Given that education spending as  percentage of GDP hovers  around  2 percent,government embarks on a project to create a "Digital Bangladesh". John Stuart Mill in his "On Liberty" wrote:

The worth of a state , in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a state which postpones the interest of their mental expansion and elevation to a little of mere administrative skill , or of that semblance of it which practice gives in details of business; a state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.

So increasing the expenditure on education to facilitate human development initiatives as well as making a knowledge based society is an obligation. This novel objective is marred by swollen spending of Education as a result of inclusion of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant cost, as revealed by a report. By coining  two different sectors , education and technology, into one Education and Technology ministry simply concatenated spending of two sectors. And Rooppur Power Plant project is one of the costliest project, already costing $11.52 billion, Bangladesh has ever undertaken.  Annual allocation to this power project simply increases the spending of Education ministry and gives a cosmetic swollen look. It does not mean any genuine commitment. Just take a look at the following two graphs: first one shows spending on Education(plus technology), Health and Defense as percentage of total spending. Inclusion of technology places the share of Education above the other two sectors as percentage of total public expenditure. The next graph shows gross allocation(development plus non development) on Education and Technology sector. Please note it includes non development expenses, which means salaries, operational expenses and other infrastructure related costs are included. It barely captures any genuine commitment from the government towards education sector. If we take a closer look at the allocation we see that this year Tk 32,101 crore has been proposed for Defense sector. Of which Tk 29285 crore will be spent on operational expenses and Tk 148 crore will be used for development expenses. Unfortunately, the wage employment we have created in the defense sector is not that good. We see that our agencies miserably failed to forewarn about drug invasion, about expulsion of Rohingyas  from Myanmar, to maintain the existing inventory( we have lost more fighters in accidents in the last 10 years) and to foresee merger acquisition in the corporate world. Merger of Telenor and Axiata group came to the light when Telenor group divulged the news on its website. No agency managed to get prior information and told BTRC to take a precautionary step. More recently, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation incurred Tk 6000 crore loss in LNG purchase in a year due to price fluctuation in the international market. No agency saw it coming. One of the LNG terminal owner is the brother of a former chairman of parliamentary standing committee(defense). What is going on? Let's cut it short and get back to the point.

(Data Source: CPD)

(Data Source: Bangladesh Economic Review 2018)

 Diverting funds to scientific research is a bit late move but much appreciated one. But how and where this money will be spent demand some serious thought and discussion. The important thing is who will bear the onus of deciding where the fund should go. If part of this fund is meant for academic research then professional bodies, like Academy of Science, will decide the priority sectors. If  part of it is meant for industry oriented research, then industry representatives, scientists, experts and public officials will decide which industries will be chosen. I had the chance to see the progress of many development projects as an NGO worker and journalist. Frankly speaking the experience was not pleasant. I saw first hand that non-technical staff cornered the technical staff and non-development spending ate up a big part of project spending. Unless it is absolutely needed, it is better to avoid recruiting non-technical staff. Or try to recruit undergrad or grad student of respective discipline. It will eradicate any communication gap , give the students an exposure and help checking spending. Often this kind of non-technical position creates poor jobs that lead to further corruption to obviate income vulnerabilities of the position holder.

I do not want to talk about here the academic research and  want to discuss mostly on industrial research. In industry oriented research, I think it is better to spend the fund on areas that will give quick result in the short span of time. This success in short period will fetch more fund later. Two sectors that come to my mind are textiles and agro processing/ food processing. We have tertiary  and technical institutions aimed to cater to the demand of these two industries. Our agriculture sector itself is a success story and bevy of research work is going on. Unfortunately, we do not pour enough fund to textile and RMG research. Expertise and foreign collaboration are also lacking here. We have formed so many strategic partnership with friendly countries but did not manage to get strategic partner in key research areas. For instance, Russians are implementing power and arms delivery projects with huge price tag. We could easily seek their assistance in research initiatives in other areas using  thawing relations and as a condition to the ongoing projects. They would love to step in to explore new areas of cooperation that will have strategic values and will work as a good PR to improve their image, already marred by cost controversy. I would like to see Russian and Bangladeshi textile engineers come together to initiate research projects aiming to bring automation in RMG manufacturing( particularly in Knit items), to innovate machine to make high-end T-shirts, to make low-cost effluent treatment plant and  to innovate sophisticated fabrics. The acquired knowledge could be jointly used, sharing the intellectual property.This kind of partnership  will not only boost our capability but will give us an edge over our rivals for a significant period. Similarly, our agro processing/food processing industry can start research work to tap the markets of South and South East Asia. For instance, our biologist, fisheries experts and entrepreneurs could try to innovate alternate but cost effective environment for crab production, for eel production. Research activities can also be taken to increase dairy products and meat production. Bangladesh could easily export processed pork meat like ham, bacon etc  to South East Asian countries and China. Part of this fund may be spent to discover a suitable pork species or develop the local varieties and to discover vaccines for them.

One of the good thing of industry based research is that once one makes some result venture capitalist and private investor come forward with funds. Projects that involve high market potential and high risks usually vie for this kind of fund. If this happens,  most of the government fund for research may go to academic research.

Creation of research minds largely hinges on the education sector. A great part of your population have to be at the same wavelength to comprehend the gravity of a situation, to know what to do at a critical stage and to respond to changing situation. To create that stock, nurturing of minds at every stage of learning is a must . It is great to learn that government plans to recruit foreign teachers. In English medium schools and in private universities, foreign teachers are already working. But their number is not significant. Our educational centers have fallen victims to tribal politics. Even school management committee occupied by political stalwarts. Universities have fallen into the hands of anarchists.World class graduates churned out by public universities till Ershad regime still dominate the private and public sectors. That momentum is not maintained. We never try to search the answer behind it. As many of our graduates contribute to foreign economy and education sector, time has come to open up our education sector to foreigners. We have already seen the tremendous contribution they make to textile and cricket. Unfortunately, the old guards already voiced strong opposition to such plan. It is not objective criticism when many critics tried to seek privilege and lobbied for making their son  a public university  teacher. However I have not seen them criticizing the defense budget. Going after the defense services may cost one the privileges of being a public university teacher even if he was son of former registrar of the same public university or hailed from a cadet college. Foreign teachers and educators have less chance to become victims of tribalism and they can discharge their duties at ease during  the tenures of different regimes.  Moreover, they impart new ideas, vision , approach to see things and learning techniques among students who do not have chance to know about these stuffs and lost interest in learning. As a teacher of French as a foreign language I had the chance to attend training programs conducted by French pedagogy trainers. Those training programs were mind blowing sessions. Simple dictionary becomes a magical instrument of learning. At least dozen of funny ways are there to learn new things with the help of dictionary. It is a pity that many of us have reluctance to use dictionary. Back in February, host of a TV show on  new books published at Ekushey Book Fair begrudged a book of poems after encountering too many unknown Bangla words. He said," I don't like reading books that need a dictionary by my bed side." It appalled me to see such people occupied the position due to their strong political connection.We do not see too many professors working as consultants to media outlets when we have nearly three dozens of private TV stations and radio stations. What lacks is air of professionalism and learning. It is prevalent even at the highest learning center. At a university, a teacher was justifying the claim of not subscribing to foreign journals by saying " they cost a lot and become irrelevant after a certain point of time".

Foreign educators will alter the current atmosphere of learning. I also found the claim that foreign teachers will launder money every year  a bit asinine. One will find it hollow when he looks at the condition of our financial institutions. Who did run and operate those troubled banks? Who were at the management committee? I have no doubt in my mind that foreign teachers will add great value to our education and to society in general. Just make sure that there is a pool of foreign teachers registered with University Grants Commission at the tertiary level of education. This is the area where we do need their contribution to break the vicious cycle of the anarchists who are quite successful in bringing academic operations of public universities to a complete halt. Many of these leaders' sons or daughters are never admitted to public universities. They hold stakes at private universities.French way in dealing with the anarchists is quite exemplary. In the 90's French railway workers called general strikes frequently and crippled the whole railway network. One French administration decided to deal with these trouble makers by creating a reserve of foreign railway workers taking full advantage of EU common market.

The allocation to scientific research,a belated step but a welcoming one, is just a mere step toward the creation of knowledge based society. But additional laws and amendments are needed to make sure how the knowledge based output will be shared, protecting the intellectual right of researchers and institutions. Prerequisite to the illuminated knowledge based society is learning environment that shapes curious minds. Allowing foreign teachers in our education sector is a little step towards that goal. I hope government will trash the fictitious claims made by old guards and allow foreign teachers to play their role at every stage of our education.