Uni-track system: Is it necessary?

Now the question is: apart from this high flying platitude what has really motivated the ministry to take such a momentous decision which will vitally affect not only millions of students but also teachers, parents and guardians ? Has there been any specific recommendation regarding this matter from any Education Commission constituted by the government? If the answer is "No", then what prompted the MoE to go for such drastic reform measures? It has been reported that a sort of Coordination Council formed by the ministry has recommended the so-called reform measures. We would

like to know who were the members of this council.

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The reason for raising these pertinent questions is that the general public has largely been kept in the dark about it. Even now a vast majority of students, teachers, parents and guardians both in the rural and urban areas has remained ignorant about the kind of changes that are being imposed from the top virtually without their knowledge. Who are really to blame for such glaring lapses? Is it really enough to hold an informal BTV discussion with the concerned ministers and their high level ministry officials in attendance? Did anybody from among the discussants had the guts to speak against the reforms or give a note of dissent. Apart from such isolated 'official' forum, why has there not been any public debate over this vital issue of national importance? In a democratic society, the general public has every legitimate right to know the truth. They certainly cannot be taken for a ride at their expense.

Already the MoE has reportedly spent a hefty amount of Tk. 500.00 crore in foreign consultancy, local consultancy, expensive foreign trips for ministry officials, new textbook preparation and writing, and God knows, what else? This colossal amount of money might well have been spent if it went into secondary school teachers' orientation and training. A poor country like ours can ill-afford such monumental wastage in the name of so-called reforms.

New textbooks and curriculum : Any new system implies new curriculum and new syllabus requiring new textbooks which need to be printed and published in millions of copies. This means mega bucks for mega profits for a handful of hand-picked publishers. It is difficult to imagine such windfall profits will not be shared with the benefactors.

Previously, the responsibility for printing, publishing and countrywide distribution of textbooks used to be given to the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB). Now, we are being told that this huge task of printing, publishing and distribution has been privatised. Has there been any public tendering for this project? We already know what happened when during Awami League regime BEXIMCO was entrusted with textbook printing and publishing and what a big mess they made of it. Hopefully, similar thing is not going to happen again.

There is going to be several textbooks for each subject. In that event who is going to standardise question-setting, then testing and evaluation for this kind of multiple textbooks for each subject? Who is going to guarantee the quality and for that matter the flawlessness of such privately-produced textbooks? There may be exceptions, but exceptions are not the rule. We wonder who are going to take responsibility for such lapses which are inevitable in a mega-business venture like this. In our examination-oriented system, this testing and evaluation is going to be a key complicating factor which will contain seeds for future disaster or debacle.

Allocation of Super-inflated marks for internal evaluation : Another complicating factor that we can foresee is the reported allotment of 30 marks out of 100 in each subject for the internal evaluation of each examinee. In an ideal situation, this is all very good and well-intentioned. But our educational situation is far from the ideal. Even without trying to question the integrity of the teachers, this will inevitably result in inflated subjective marking distorting and further lowering the existing standard. Moreover, teachers may have to face political and other undue local pressure to raise internal marks. By pursuing such a short-sighted myopic policy, are we not courting educational disaster? In whose interest are we unsettling a settled and tested system? Has the existing multi-track system been proved worthless beyond any shadow of doubt?

Anwarul Haque is an academic.