A TEACHER of mathematics in an elite school in the capital does not know the correct spelling in Bengali of Tettrish (33) is a fact highly ridiculous and very hard to accept. A national daily on Thursday also identified teachers in two other prestigious schools of the city, in which the same spelling errors have been flashed out. This crude reality just exposes the quality of teachers in many schools where they are misleading students and teaching them wrong. According to that report, a student of Class Three wrote correctly the spelling of the numbers in his exercise book as a part of his homework. But the class teacher in the school while checking the homework made the right spelling-wrong.
Guardians are eager to send their kids to the well-known schools with the hope to impart better education to them. But it is seen that those schools are otherwise busy for collecting high tuition fees and other charges. They are also strict about dressing code and manners of children but not anyway serious about proper teaching. When the situation in so-called prestigious city schools is so frustrating, then the condition of general schools not need to be mentioned. Proper spelling is the foundation to write in any language correctly. Hence it is the first step of basic education. If children are not taught carefully in school to attain perfection in proper spelling, their education will remain incomplete forever.
Indeed, with this exposure we get a reflection of quality of our prevailing education system. It is true that number of our educational institutions, both in primary and secondary level, have increased manifold but their quality is in shamble in most cases. Many blame logistic support and quality of teachers are not adequate in such schools. But without qualified teacher we cannot expect to attain proficiency and dedication in our education. Many blame low wages for failing to recruit good teachers. But such basic mistakes have nothing to do with the wage level. The fault may be in the recruitment process that often being blamed now on political pressure. But we can’t compromise with basic qualification of a teacher.
It is unfortunate that most of our educational institutions have lost teaching character while becoming more commercial in outlook. But if good education is not available with even high cost then we must say that our future generation is going to face catastrophic end. In our view every school should take care of the basic qualification of their teachers and make sure that they are teaching the correct thing, we can’t be indifferent about it.
