Bangladesh’s
miraculous and history making success in primary education is now an exemplary
model for the world community to follow. The government was committed to
providing basic education to all of its children and eventually this was
achieved with the positive efforts and attitudes of GO-NGOs and concerned
stakeholders. As the economic development of Bangladesh mostly depends on a
productive workforce a youth workforce may lead the country’s future
socio-economic development, therefore it is obligatory the government must make
the country’s future generation a productive workforce. Only qualitative primary
education may build our future generation to be a productive workforce. Besides providing qualitative basic education,
future generations also need to provide qualitative healthcare facilities to
strengthen their journey to develop them as a productive workforce in the
future. Productive workforces ensure earnings, savings and paying taxes which increase
economic growth and ensure development.
Qualitative
primary education not only depends on qualified and competent teachers but also
depends on the commitment and positive attitude of those teachers. Developing
teacher competencies among teachers is not a hard task and the government has developed
competent primary school teachers by providing training to them. But developing
commitment and bringing a positive attitude into the classroom are difficult
and these are the crying needs for ensuring qualitative primary education.
Once,
Bangladesh had bamboo built primary schools with poor infrastructural
facilities, however the outcomes from schools was extraordinary. Nowadays,
despite providing superb hardware (sophisticated child friendly infrastructural
facilities) and software facilities (manifold training, multimedia classrooms
etc.) outcomes are not satisfactory. The main reason behind deterioration of
primary school achievement, regarding students’ performances, is that in the
past teachers were missionaries as well as visionaries. Despite having
inadequate educational qualifications and insufficient training, they had
morality within themselves. At present teachers are receiving a range of
training including C–in-Ed/DPEd, curriculum dissemination, subject based
training, inclusive education, lesson study, leadership, academic supervision,
pre-primary education, test item development, ECL (Each Child Learning) etc.
However, the application of achieved knowledge, skills and attitude from
training is very poor. The burning question is - why teachers are not utilising their achieved knowledge and skills in
teaching-learning activities in the classrooms? Many teachers, especially in
newly nationalised primary schools, struggle to adapt to the new training which
is enriched with high standard content.
Primary
school teachers experience a variety of training in order to achieve knowledge
and skills. For the time being provide only DPEd (teachers having no
professional training), curriculum dissemination, pre-primary education (only
for pre-primary teachers) and induction/subject based training (only for newly
appointed teachers) and suspend all other training. Rather teachers should be provided
with frequent short term training for developing morality as well as possessing
vision and mission within themselves. These sorts of motivational training need
suitable manuals or modules. Besides providing the above mentioned motivational
training, teachers might be given self-learning materials/manuals to be self-motivated.
Self-learning materials must include efforts and contributions of missionaries/educationalists/teachers/social
workers like William Carey, Begum Rokeya, Mother Teresa, Valerie Taylor, Md
Nurul Alam (Ex. Head Teacher, Shibram Government Primary School, Sundargonj,
Gaibandha), Md Shamsur Rahman (EX. Head Teacher, Kamal Bazar Government Primary
School, Dakshin Surma, Sylhet), Mrs. Hosne Ara Akter (Head Teacher, Baimhati
Government Primary School, Mirjapur, Tangail) etc. In addition, recent much
discussed explored personalities, including Sada Moner Manosh (Man of the
golden heart), who have significant experience in the expansion of education, might
be included in the self-learning manuals for developing teachers as visionary
and missionary. Supervisory officers should also be provided with these types
of motivational training to strengthen their morality as they should also have
vision and mission.
To ensure
qualitative primary education, each and every primary school teacher should
consider his/her school as a mission and his/her job like a missionary. Education
officers should also think their job like missionaries. Existing content, mode
and nature of training can never change their attitudes to become them as
missionaries. Only motivational training can make them missionaries suitable
for fulfilling the government’s vision of providing quality education to all
children with a view to building a productive workforce for the socio-economic
development of the country.
It is true
that to pave a way towards developing missionaries and visionary teachers,
there might be the provision of motivational incentives for teachers in
addition to organising motivational training for them and supplying them with self-learning
manuals. To remove monotony among teachers because of working in the remotest rural
primary schools for a long time, there should be an auto transfer policy for
them. Primary schools might be categorised into urban, rural and hard to reach
area schools. By keeping provision of greater salary and benefits (conveyance allowance,
food allowance, transport allowance etc.) for teachers of hard to reach and
rural areas schools than teachers of urban schools, teachers might be transferred
to a different categories school after a certain period. In addition, initial supervisory
officer posts might be filled by giving promotion to head teachers. Moreover,
there might be a ladder for teachers and officers to get promotion to the next
higher post timely and regularly. This is the hard reality that primary
education in Bangladesh needs professionalism for its rapid and qualitative
development.
By developing
primary school teachers and officers as missionaries, the government can bring
massive success in the quality of primary education in regards to building a
future generation as a productive workforce. Stakeholders concerned with
primary education should extend their support and cooperation to make the
initiative a success.
Md Bayazid Khan
The
writer workings in primary education in Bangladesh.
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