The New Nation - Internet Edition

WHAT the Chief Adviser (CA) drew attention to at a conference on education on Sunday, merits the urgent attention of policy planners in the realm of education. The CA observed that the country would have to overcome segmentation and division in the education system at secondary and primary levels that create a divided society. He recommended a set of core knowledge and competencies to be acquired by 'all' students along with choices for additional or complementary education. In other words, he advocated for a uniform basic education so that pupils in the different branches, are all required to be well versed in certain subjects that would pave the way to their becoming human resources for the benefit of the country.

There are three categories of schools in the country - the Bengali medium schools, the English medium ones and the madrashahs. Most of the Bengali medium schools are considered poorly run as guardians too keen to provide high quality education to their children. This leads to the scramble among them to put their children in English medium schools. But most of these schools are also not up to the mark. Madrashah education puts emphasis on religious studies with inadequate importance given to science and other subjects. Besides, the quality of teaching at the madrashah level is also considered rather poor.

The English medium schools tend to generate elitist behaviour among pupils. They are often found unfamiliar with conditions in their own country but more knowledgeable about other countries. The Bengali medium schools show a relative lack of emphasis on English and the quality of teaching in most of those is not up to the mark. The madrashah pass-outs are mainly employed as prayer leaders. The emphasis is less on creating resourceful persons to undertake diverse economic activities. Thus, the deficiencies in the three systems of education need to be addressed by achieving some sort of harmony among them.