Introducing unitrack secondary education

In 2003 National Curriculum Co-ordination Committee (NCCC), Secondary Education Improvement Project (SESIP), National Curriculum and Text Book Board (NCTB) developed general aims and objectives for the proposed unitrack curriculum. In November 2004, the National Curriculum and Textbook Board developed a curriculum for this system.

In the unitrack system all the secondary level students have to undergo a common curriculum. The major subjects specified for this curriculum are Bangla, Mathematics, Social Science, General Science, Business Studies, Religious Studies, Agricultural Education, Home Economics and Computer Science. Thus this curriculum is replacing the existing multitrack curriculum of Science, Humanities and Business Studies. According to this new curriculum every student has to earn knowledge and skills on all the subjects mentioned.

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The rationale may be, in the context of our country, that many students fail to continue further education after secondary level. This level is the terminal level for many. After completing this level they get engaged in jobs. For this reason all students need to --

• Develop a strong skills foundation in literacy and numeracy
• Learn to reason and solve problems
• Develop an international perspective as well as an understanding and appreciation of their own and other cultures
• Become familiar with technologies that can make human interaction with nature and knowledge more fruitful
• Learn to work co-operatively with others.

But now the question is, the way the government has taken decision to introduce this new system in 2006 -- how far is it effective in our context?

In our country, in the case of secondary education, along with general education there are madrasah education, technical education and two types of English medium schools (one type follows the national curriculum and the other follows the overseas curriculum). If government thinks that all students should come under the same education system, then this sort of discrepancies will have to be removed first. But it seems government has decided to introduce this curriculum only in the case of general education ignoring the real situation. As a result, all the secondary level students will not come under this system. The madrasah, technical education and the English medium schools will be left out from this new system. This seems quite strange. Why the government is in such a haste at introducing the system keeping these institutions out of the view?

To develop or renew or modify a curriculum, it is necessary to take the opinion of the education experts and stakeholders. The unitrack system must have been extensively discussed and publicised before coming to a fair conclusion. In fact the government took the decision to introduce this new system without the stakeholders' and education experts' opinion. Even no discussion was held in the Cabinet or Parliament. Apart from this, the thing which was not taken into consideration is -- teachers. To introduce a new curriculum we require to think of the concerned teachers, because they are the ones through whom this curriculum will be implemented.

According to the unitrack curriculum, we need to teach skills such as thinking, reflection, solving, discovering, presentation, questioning. And for all these teacher-competency is needed, because the teacher-competency makes the difference in achievement. Therefore naturally the following questions arise --
-- Are the existing teachers aware of implementing such a curriculum in the classroom?
-- Will the teachers be able to manage and control the situation of teaching-learning process based on this curriculum?

We still have dearth of well-trained subject teachers in the country. The teachers are mechanically teaching the textbooks. Whereas, the existing multitrack curriculum is being taught by many of the unskilled and untrained teachers, after introduction of a new system -- would this new dish be a very good appetite for our crippled education system? No effort has been made to train the teachers, before introducing the unitrack curriculum. For example, the curriculum which has been developed for general science (for grade nine and ten) in this new system most of the teachers (except few) will not be able to cope with the approach of this curriculum. The new curriculum emphasises the importance of 'how to learn' rather than simply 'what to learn' and the importance of using an enquiry approach in the learning of scientific ideas. The new curriculum emphasises the importance of students participating actively, with their teachers, in the development of their learning.

Before introducing this curriculum, we have to prepare our teachers. Otherwise, many of the things selected in the curriculum will not be possible to implement. And appropriate and intensive training of teachers is essential, as they are potential actors in the change process. They will have to know the teaching methods and assessment techniques, as most of the teachers are not at all aware of these.

So without mastering the new curriculum materials and without sufficient training of teachers, hurried introduction of this unitrack curriculum will affect millions of students. There is also shortage of science and mathematics teachers in the country. Therefore we do not have sufficient number of teachers of science and mathematics. This is the difficulty to introduce this sort of curriculum with effectiveness. Due to all these factors not only the science education, the whole education sector may be affected rather than benefited by this new system.

Quazi Afroz Jahan Ara is Associate Professor, Institute of Education and Research, Dhaka University.