Ranjit Podder :
From the very beginning of the inception of a school in ancient Greece during the time of Aristotle, the schooling system sprouted branches and changed a lot but the importance of schools and schooling has increased greatly and currently a school has become an inseparable part of the society. However, in the recent years the schooling system in Bangladesh has started to face challenges partly because of some teachers’ greed for excessive money and due to lack of proper academic supervision, monitoring, and mentoring. A report published in different dailies recently has informed that there are more than 100 school teachers who have earned more than 10 million taka each through private tutoring and establishing illegal coaching centres. In addition to those mentioned, there are some other reasons for the start of decay in this sector, for example, poor salary, lack of devotion to teaching, little enforcement of existing laws, and political interference in education sector. There are some secondary teachers who are no way less wealthy than businessmen or industrialists; and those teachers are damaging the schooling system in Bangladesh. The amount of money they have illegally amassed sometimes becomes the cause of envy or hatred by others in the society. In the past, teachers used to live an austere life and they were loved and honoured by the society because of their dedication to educate the society. Unless the schools can be freed from the clutch of some greedy teachers, the lost honour of teachers can never be recovered; and the light of education in the society will be flickering. This education business of some teachers must be stopped immediately to make a mentally healthy nation having values and morality. Unless teachers have social values, morality, and love for others, where will students learn those virtues from? To prepare the future generation as better citizens, this deviation of teachers must be corrected through proper measures by the Ministry of Education. If there is scarcity of ‘models’ to follow, where will the students learn the good social practices from?
Why do students have to go a coaching centre or have to appoint private tutors? Why can schools not satisfy the need of the students? If a big number of students have to go to another centre to meet their needs, I am sure, the schools have already become useless to a great extent. Instead of being seats of learning, most secondary institutions have become exam centres. If the education system collapses for the greed and carelessness of some teachers and education administrators, it may create a morally and intellectually crippled nation; probably the crippling process has already started. When students require more contact hours for better learning and to get their problems solved, they are losing their class-days shown in the curriculum.
Now the question is, “Why do guardians send their children to coaching centres or appoint private teachers”? From the parents’ point of view, sufficient number of classes is not held to meet students’ needs and for that reason they have to send their children to coaching centres. In other words, guardians have to buy those lost hours from the teachers for high price although everyone has not got the equal purchasing power. On the other hand, teachers say that they cannot maintain their family with the salary they receive. One government school teacher educating for the last eight years has said that he draws Tk 17000 every month after all deductions. He has to maintain a family consisted of four members with the money remains after paying house rent, gas cylinder, electricity which stands at around ten thousand per month. It is comprehendible that it is difficult for a teacher to run a family with that amount of money. Of course, teachers do not always get involved in private coaching to fill up the gap between the salary and the monthly expenditure; most of those involved in private tutoring earn much more than they require maintaining a family decently. Md Nazrul Islam, Assistant Teacher of English atFaridpurGovt Girls’ High School said, “Sometimes students are bound to appoint a private teacher or to go to a coaching centre as the available working days are not sufficient to finish the syllabus. Schools remain closed during PSC, JSC, SSC, internal examinations, and summer and winter vacations minimizing the class days”. Although the curriculum shows 222 working days per year, they all are not class days; they include examinations, sports and cultural programs, tuition fees collection, admission and book distribution days. He suggested that class days could be increased through constructing permanent examination halls in all the districts and upazilla headquarters which could also be used for other community purposes. In that case the education boards can conduct the examinations like Bangladesh Public Service Commission without hampering the teaching-learning activities.
If the students can get the desired help in schools, probably they would not think of private coaching which is time, money, and energy consuming. Experienced teacher educator Assistant Professor MdAbul Bashar who is currently conducting his doctoral research on education at Jahangirnagar University says, “Schools should have the right to rearrange the NCTB prescribed class routine if they find it necessary putting two or more consecutive classes together in order to help students in their need areas; in that case some easier subjects can be dropped from the routine for some days”. He further added that regional differences and students’ needs should be considered during making a class routine.
The business of private coaching can be minimized through regular transfer of government school teachers and implementing the existing laws. If they are transferred regularly after two or three years to a different-district school, the situation may improve. Some of the out-of-school tutors target the admission seekers trying to be admitted into different classes in government and famous non-government schools. This can be avoided through holding lottery with the candidates or creating similar facilities in other schools of the area. Another factor that could improve the situation is strong academic supervision and monitoring. If the schools can be made functioning through sincere teaching and overseeing, the students may not have to opt for a private tutor or a coaching centre. Additionally, guardians can be relieved of the extra educational expenditure. However, the vacant posts of head, assistant head, and assistant teachers should be filled in soon for better running of the schools. Besides, education authority can bring changes in teachers’ regular activities including work such as checking homework, examining class test scripts, planning lessons, holding one to one feedback with students and meetings with the guardians, keeping students’ learning inventory (recording strengths and weaknesses, behaviours of students, remedial measuresetc), peer observations for reciprocal professional development, and so on. Before imposing all those, teachers’ salary should be reasonably increased and taking a program to motivate teachers to take teaching as a vocation can be of use.
Making schools effective is urgent because most guardians are unhappy with the teaching-learning situation in schools and frustrated about the additional expenditure for their children’s education. A survey revealed that coaching and private tuition costs per month per student ranges from 3000 to 5000 or more on average especially for PSC, JSC, and SSC students in Faridpur town. When a guardian appoints a teacher to coach their child individually at home, the cost is usually higher. The cost has been calculated on the basis of attending a coaching classand appointing a private tutor at home. This extra cost becomes a burden to the low and middle income parents. In order to reduce the burden of parents, the salary of teachers can be increased to a reasonable level and any kind of private coaching can be banned making schools the only places for curriculum implementation because a national curriculum cannot and should not be materialized outside schools unsupervised. Besides, students do not find opportunity to practise their creativity because of being dependent on out-of-school coaching. If all the teachers can be involved in school teaching activities, the low and middle income guardians will be relieved. As education is constitutional right of people, the government needs to look into this matter; a little more care of the education authority can bring a huge change in secondary education sector. Of course, alongside handsome salary, there should have provisions of rewards for teachers; the incentives could be a letter of appreciation, salary increase, promotion, and so on.
Recruiting qualified and motivated teachers, increase in salary, implementation of existing laws, arranging incentives for teachers, providing similar kinds of human and physical resources in all schools, effective monitoring and mentoring, increasing contact hours are believed to improve the situation. But it can be said that unless schools can be made effective and functioning, aims and objectives of the national curriculum would be partly or faultily achieved. Moreover, it is no way wise to let national curriculum to be materialized in unauthorized coaching centres.
(The writer is an Assistant Professor currently posted at Govt. Teachers’ Training College in Faridpur. He can be reached at email: [email protected])
