DESPITE serious attempts by the government to make the creative method of teaching a success, experts remain worried about use of the type of questioning in both primary and secondary exams. To many of them it is completely an anti-education system, as per a media outlet reports on Saturday. Students of primary and secondary levels are overburdened in the first place with books and it is difficult to apply creative methods in exams as they undergo serious pressure both mentally and physically, which don’t allow them to be creative.
The creative question method was introduced at primary school and later at secondary school level so that students would have to read and understand the textbook and be able to answer questions based on comprehension. Time passed, but more than half of the primary school teachers are still unclear about the creative education method. Teachers of more than 40 percent secondary schools still cannot set question papers according to the creative method as per a latest government reports. Even more alarming is that half of the teachers rely on guidebooks to prepare lessons while 92 percent of the students in the sample prepare for tests using such guidebooks.
Currently, students of primary schools have to carry backpacks loaded with plenty of books and the creative method has overburdened the immature kids’ learning process. Besides, ambiguity in understanding among teachers and students renders the creative method ineffective. The method is not a problem but the problem lies on its application. In this context, experts said that creativity does not have any limit, but we have given a structure to it. What we are following is a partially creative method.
Government introduced the much-talked-about “creative question method” to discourage the age-old tradition of learning by heart. It also wanted to discourage coaching centers and copying in the examination centers. The real issue is to make sure that students are able to learn and retain what they are being taught in school.
Education has become corrupted by money-making motives because the administrators and educators were allowing non-creative methods like note learning and complete dependence on guidebooks to play a major role for children to succeed. This is detrimental to the development of pupils learning. But creative method also fails to meet the requirement. The Education Ministry must be more practical in enforcing the adoption of the creative method by teachers through extensive training. Not only that, the authorities concerned should think whether the creative method indeed is making our students creative. If that’s not the case, we must think beyond creative method and devise an alternative to ease the burden of our young learners.
